


The Garden Of Live Ettas

by Sunshine170



Category: Fringe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-24 06:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/936555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunshine170/pseuds/Sunshine170
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her fingers itch with the muscle memories of a different life, of war, of knowing how to use a gun, growing up alone, unloved, parent less. She feels damaged, tainted by this person, this phantasm of another place, who has injected the toxicity of her world into hers, her brittleness scraping against her insides. She doesn't want to remember dying in her father's arms at 24.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It's like the simulated lightning they create at the science centre, there's first a crackle then, a flash of light.

The ceiling lights up in white brilliance . A flash shoots through the machine and Etta sees it before anyone else.

She freezes… right before doubling over and slumping to the ground.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

She wakes up woozy and lightheaded to the sight of her father hovering over her anxiously, as he holds her up and helps her sit up.

" What happened?" She blinks, trying to focus as she takes the water glass he hands her, taking a grateful sip.

" You passed out." He says grimly, squeezing her free hand.

" That's odd." She manages a weak chuckle. "Things like that don't happen to me." She shakes her head, feeling her vision swim as she tries to steady herself to her feet, stumbling slightly.

" No… no they don't." He nods somberly, the thought of his perfectly healthy daughter keeling over like that without an explanation is disturbing. He puts a hand on her shoulder, pushing her back to seating position.

" Don't stand up just yet."

She nods wordlessly, taking another sip of the water.

" Dad you're going to think I am crazy, but I think …"

" It's because of the machine?" he finishes knowingly. " Yeah, that would be far from crazy." He smirks without any humor. " It affects you."

" It affects me?"

" It was calibrated for my DNA." He explains. " And Olivia's too, as a failsafe. Of course it would respond to you. I should have thought about that. You could have been hurt. " He looks really mad with himself.

" I am fine." She assures him. " I really am. Whatever it did to me, I think it's over."

He nods and looks at her carefully, laying a hand to her cheek.

" I know it's really late but you think you're okay to drive back to Boston? I'd really like to get you as far away from this thing as possible, get you home to your mom, preferably before she has an aneurysm."

Etta nods, giving him a smile, trying hard not to fall apart in that very moment.

" I am okay dad. Let's go home."

She doesn't tell him what else the machine did to her.

She doesn't tell him that she remembers dying in his arms in 2036.

* * *

They drive in silence.

She feels like she's been possessed by a ghost, every breath sheer agony as the images assault her over and over.

Her fingers itch with the muscle memories of a different life, of war, of knowing how to use a gun.

…. killing people.

She feels an overwhelming urge to throw up at the thought of that, physically nauseated, disgusted with this other person who has taken up residence under her skin. With this soulless, unfeeling shell of a human being who could torture people without a second thought.

But she keeps calm, mostly for her father's sake. Her phone meanwhile buzzes relentlessly, loading up text messages racked up over the day, communication from her friends she's missed out on while being in a parallel universe.

She scrolls through them listlessly. Seemingly so much had happened.

_Trish: Scored us those concert tickets. Jason's driving us. Next sat at 7._

_P.S- Adam will be there : )_

_Josh: Did you finish Stanford application? Send me copy of admissions essay when you see this. ASAP._

_Eddie: Guess what I got in the mail today? Combat ultimate 7 J . Tell Uncle Peter I said thanks. Play date next week?_

_Adam: Hy Etta. Cyu on Sat. You're going right?_

_Josh: Where the hell are u and why aren't u picking up? Send me the essay Bishop.. like seriously._

_Megan: Rehearsals doubled for this week for the recital. We decided on Rise for the after party btw._

_Ella: Want to go shopping this Sun? I need help choosing a present for your parents' anniv…_

_Josh: You better be lying in a ditch somewhere….. am going to go to community college and its ur fault._

_Nigel: Shinny this Friday night at the rink. Get your helmet fixed or you're NOT allowed to playJ Can your dad come? We really need a good centre._

" Nice to be back home huh?" Her father chuckles at the way her phone keeps beeping. "Looks like you were sorely missed."

Etta resists the urge to laugh hysterically. This is the reality of her life. Concerts and parties and boys and worrying about college.

This is what some iteration of her past, present and future was willing to die for?

"Looks that way." She mumbles. "There's a game of pickup hockey tomorrow at the rink. Nigel's asking if you'll play? We need a centre." She relays the last message , almost on autopilot. Nigel was her friend from across the street. They'd grown up together.

Nigel took hockey seriously… very seriously and even now when she's basically going clinically insane, she knows not to forget that little fact.

" Sure. Sounds like fun." He nods. " Remind me to fix your helmet though. The strap keeps coming off. I don't want you to get a concussion. I think enough damage has been done today."

Damage…

She feels damaged, tainted by this person, this phantasm of another place, who has injected the toxicity of her world into hers, her brittleness scraping against her insides.

She doesn't want to feel so incomplete, so dysfunctional, so all alone.

Without her friends, her family… her parents.

God… her parents… having to grow up without them , not knowing where they were, not having them in her life.

The thought of it alone, it wrecks her, like she's been kicked in the gut relentlessly and then left to die.

She  _had_  been left to die….by her own violation. Her father's embrace, shaky, heartbroken, crying as he clutched her against him.

Would he think her crazy if she burst into tears right now, she wonders.

" Honey are you sure you're okay?" He's asking her now, his eyes scrutinizing her face worriedly. " You look really pale. Maybe we should stop and see a doctor…"

" I am fine dad. Really. " She nods, forcing a smile. " I just want to go home."

_I have to go home. I have to be sure this is not some dream. That I'll wake up and it'll be gone._

_That I'll be her._

* * *

Her mom's at the door, waiting for them, bundled in a grey robe, her arms wrapped around her waist.

" See Liv. Brought her home… safe and sound. Just like I said I would." Her dad bends down to kiss her mom on the forehead before going inside. She simply smiles before turning to Etta, moving to hug her.

" Welcome home."

" You know Liv we were only gone a day and a half…" She can hear her dad laugh from inside the house, but her mother ignores him.

" I can't pretend that I am not relieved to have you back." She whispers, holding her tight. Etta nods, doesn't protest like she normally would have.

A parent's affection should never be taken for granted, she thinks.

" I know…" She squeezes back as hard as she can, before letting go almost reluctantly.

" Peter told me… what happened…at the bridge. Are you okay honey?" Etta can see her eyes hovering over her face anxiously.

" I am fine." She lies. " I just want to go to bed if that's okay?" she shakes her off, making her way up the stairs in a daze to her room. She strips fast and gets into her bathroom, slumping into the tub with a tired sigh. She turns on the water, making sure it was loud enough.

Hugging herself, she begins to cry.

* * *

_Earlier that day..._

The military personnel at the check post read her reams of protocol, but she barely hears anything, too entranced by the sight in front of her.

The machine that saved two worlds…

No seventeen year old girl gets to see prehistoric wave sync machines from the future. No seventeen year old girl gets to walk across a bridge to an alternate universe. But she gets to go… at special request from the former secretary of defense no less, a 60 page classified iteration of which Broyles brings home to her parents that night, six months after they open the bridge.

Apparently being the product of a trans universal parental unit has it perks, that and being born to a man who was some iteration of a son one of the most powerful people on the other side.

She can see the way her mother's guard goes up immediately as Broyles relays the request to them.

"What does he want with Etta?" She asks sharply. "Why does he want to meet her?"

Broyles looks at her father. "She's dying… his wife. She's very ill. " He tells him. "And she wants to see you. She wants to see her son… and her granddaughter. She specifically asked to see Etta. "

Behind the clout of his position and authority, there is an impassioned plea of an old man who simply wants to make his wife happy.

Her father nods slowly, something akin to pain flash past his eyes, a feeling long buried perhaps. He clears his throat.

It must be hard Etta thinks, to mourn the loss of a parent over and over.

"But she has to know… I am not her son. I am not the same Peter. "

Broyles gives him a sad smile.

"I don't think it matters to her."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"You don't have to say yes to anything." Her mother tells her that night when they're alone in her room, her father having retreated to his study to….. deal with things in his own way.

"You know that right? There's no pressure." She brings a hand to her face, brushing an errant lock of hair away.

"Say no to a chance to see the other side, visit an alternate universe?" Etta looks at her incredulously. "You're kidding me right. I am definitely going."

Olivia smiles at her, in an odd knowing way, bending down to kiss her forehead.

"Just so long as you realize that you can't go back from knowing some truths.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

That's how she finds herself at the bridge. Lincoln's there, talking to her dad. She doesn't hear them either. There's a whirring sound in her head, like static. She feels like she's in a trance, immobile almost.

"Etta…" She hears someone calling her, but she feels lost, reluctantly she pulls away to meet the gaze of the two men in front of her.

It's Lincoln. He's looking at her curiously, somewhat worriedly.

"Your nose is bleeding." He tells her.

Her father's reaction to it is… excessive, bordering on full blown panic, a mess of shaking hands and too many tissues, he stems the somewhat copious flow of blood from her nostrils, cursing under his breath.

"I am okay." She tries to tell him once the trickle stops, but he has different ideas. He calls for medic, has her checked thoroughly…too thoroughly, for over half an hour till he's satisfied.

"I should have known. Stupid." He berates himself. "God, if something had happened to you…"

"It's just a nosebleed." She assures him.

"No…it was  _not_  just a nose bleed." He shakes his head slowly, a quiet storm brewing in his eyes. But he doesn't say anything more.

"Are you ready for this?" Lincoln asks, having waited patiently while the paramedic examined her, entirely tolerant of her dad's hyper behavior.

Fathers stick together, it seems.

They move through a maze of doors, stopping for security checks at every point, answering the same questions, listening to military jargon repeated verbatim until they finally exit out of a set of metal doors and step out.

The air feels different, difficult to inhale for the newly initiated, and Etta gulps and swallows laboriously, trying to adjust to the atmosphere, a blimp overhead catching her sight.

The sky is a different color of blue in this place, she notices.

And suddenly Etta feels all of five, her stomach turning, like her first time on the Ferris Wheel at Coney Island. Without any hesitation she reaches for her father's hand, grasping at it with an impossible tightness.

"Don't let go of me." She whispers sternly to him, all pretense of adulthood vanished as they move out of the door.

He smiles, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. "There's nothing to be scared of kiddo."

"Don't let go…" she repeats looking at him and letting him know how much this actually scares her.

She doesn't want to get lost. She doesn't want to get left behind, not in this world.

And maybe because he knows, understands even… what that feeling is like, he nods.

"I won't." He tells her.


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

" Rise and shine sweetness." A teasing voice speaks from the other end of the line. " It's a beautiful day in Boston. Or so my weather app tells me."

" What do you want Eddie?" She mumbles sleepily, irritably burrowing against her pillows.

" Aww lil cousin. What's the matter? Didn't get enough beauty sleep last night ?"

"As a matter of fact no." She shakes her head, even though she knows he can't see her.

" You're kidding right?" She can hear him laugh. " Its 10:15 right now."

" Whatever…" She yawns, sitting up against the pillows. " Just tell me why you called so that I can go back to sleep please."

" Jeez.. lazy much." He laughs good naturedly. " Anyway, yours truly is having his work exhibited next week and you're cordially invited to come and gawk at some pretentious art and make meaningless comments about it."

" You're being exhibited?" Etta says, feeling more alert. "That's fantastic news."

"Don't get so excited. Half my class at Columbia is getting exhibited. I just made the cut that's all."

" It's still pretty great." She tells him.

" It's at this gallery in Tribeca. I'll text you the directions. Ella's coming too… so you guys can take the train together and stay the night. We'll do something over the weekend okay."

" Sounds great. Gotta check with mom and dad though."

" Yeah." She can literally picture his eye roll. "Like they'd ever say no to you. When has that actually happened? Anyway I gotta run okay… I'll see you next week. "

He hangs up before she can even say bye and Etta simply sighs at his impatience, sinking back into her pillows, as the awful truth of last night hits her with full force.

It wasn't just a dream… she thinks glumly.

The things she remembered hadn't faded away like she'd hoped they would.

She looks around her room vacantly, suddenly feeling uneasy in this place that she's slept in since she was a baby. It's a big room, almost as big as the master suite that her parents occupy , with the best view of the river in the entire house, you could even see the rooftops of various Harvard buildings.

At 13 this was a nursery in shambles, a broken canopy bed, a dusty teddy bear with a torn arm.. everything else gone. That was her last coherent memory of this place, this house really.

And yet, today it stands perfect, not ransacked...lived in. Over years , her childhood nursery has evolved, things changing as she grew older. Her mom had even let her completely redecorate for her fourteenth birthday, the year she decided she wanted to inhabit a more adult space. They had worked on it together, new furniture, accents, fabrics, anything she wanted, she had gotten, no expense spared.

Slowly, like she was seeing things for the first time, she takes inventory of her surroundings, of her possessions, trying to remind herself of who she was, of the life she'd led.

Her gigantic collection of Legos, spilling out of storage baskets, the one she'd been adding to since she gotten her first starter kit from her grandfather. All her medals and trophies, riding ribbons, prizes she'd won for various things. Her music books, her violin case.

This is me… she tells herself desperately.  _I am this person. I do well in school. I play instruments. I ride horses._

_I am not a person who kills another human being like it was nothing._

_I am not a murderer._

_I am not an orphan._

_I am not alone._

There are pictures everywhere of her with friends and family, birthday parties, trips, picnics, family holidays, Christmases, Thanksgivings, photo booth stills, museum stubs, concert tickets, souvenirs from all the holidays they'd taken over the years.

Etta remembers the very first time she got on a plane. She'd been six, they were on their way to Sri Lanka. She'd been so excited…and so scared.

"There's nothing to be afraid of okay?" Her dad had told her, as he'd helped fasten her seat-belt, her death grip on his shirt sleeve speaking volumes of how anxious she was. "The world is beautiful. I want you to see and experience every bit of it."

Every year unfailingly, no matter how busy their lives got, they would take a trip, usually abroad. Last summer was Spain… Seville, Barcelona, Madrid, Costa Brava. Her cousins had joined them. They'd had such a blast.

She can't help but think back to that other house. To that small and windowless room , put together with mismatched furniture that she'd slept in for over fourteen years. No pictures of exotic vacations had lined those walls, no knickknacks from around the world , no keepsakes from outings with friends, no medals or ribbons or trophies.

Bare walls, nothing save a vintage Macy's parade poster that she'd bought after three months of saving up.

Other her had never even seen the inside of an airport, let along got into a plane. She'd never spent a weekend at a lake cabin with her entire family, doing cannonballs in the water with her cousins for hours, or listening to scary stories while making s'mores over a fire.

But they'd been kind, the couple that took her in, she remembers.

They had loved her even… But it wasn't enough… it was never enough.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the door, and the subsequent arrival of her mother.

"Morning." She walks in, holding a breakfast tray in her hand, and Etta thinks she's never heard a sweeter or more assuring voice. She's still in her pajamas, and a threadbare MIT shirt that Etta knew belonged to her dad, somehow looking older, older than when she'd blasted her out a case of amber.

_" You're beautiful."_

_" So are you."_

She still looks beautiful, but not in the way 24 year old Etta remembers her.

She'd only seen a stranger, a stranger whom she had last seen at three years, one month and five days.

But this….this was  _her_  mom, Etta knows her, knows everything about her, knows her smell and the touch of her skin, the circumference of her slender waist from all the times she had encircled her with her arms as a child, she know the exact softness of her long blond hair when they brushed her elbows, the feeling of her moist lips when they kissed her forehead, the gentle touch of her fingers when they caressed her cheek or brushed away the hair from her face.

Etta knows the cadence of her voice, the sound of her heartbeat, the richness of her laughter, the many shades of green her eyes would don.

She knows all this and yet she stares, stares like she's only seeing this woman for the first time.

Olivia's meanwhile setting the tray down in front of her with a smile, unaware of the things running through her head.

"Compliments of your father." She waves her hand in a grand gesture, pointing to the meticulously stacked breakfast in front of her.

Etta averts her eyes, blinking back a sudden rush of tears, that the sight of a Spanish omelet would make her cry should be ridiculous.

"He didn't have to do this…"

"Well you did travel to an alternate universe, figured you deserved some kind of homecoming." She smiles, easier than Etta remembers. " And what with you fainting and everything, we gotta get your strength back."

" Mom.." She shrugs in nonchalance, pretending interest in her fruit cup, allowing her mother to steal a strawberry.

"You know he cooks when he's upset."Olivia points out, putting up her legs on the mattress, she sits cross legged, snagging her own mug of coffee from the tray. "And I know you're going to say you're fine. But your dad's not convinced and he's having a hard time as it is with everything. That machine… he doesn't exactly have the greatest history with it. Just let him do whatever he needs to get through this okay honey?"

She nods, almost numb. Her father doting on her should not be such a jarring concept. Of course he doted on her, everybody did. Last of the Dunham-Bishop clan, she's everybody's baby. Her parents, Aunt Rachel, even her cousins…they all spoil her rotten.

That's normal. Family is normal, family caring about you is normal. Parents plying you with food is normal. Normal is good, normal is what  _she_  never had, that insidious voice in her head that mocks her for the smiley face, fashioned from fruit spread, on her toast.

"Well… you're really putting me out here." She manages to joke feebly. " Forcing me to enjoy a delicious breakfast in bed." She picks up the fork and begins to eat, savoring the crispy goodness, unable to help an appreciative sigh.

" I know…we're awful parents." Olivia says dryly, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of her hair behind her ear and Etta leans in for a second. This wasn't a gesture that should feel as alien as it did.

" So miraculously….it's my day off and I haven't been called in for work…yet. I was thinking if you want to go shopping?"

" You want to go shopping?" Her eyebrows go up dramatically, as she takes another bite of the omelet. "You don't even like shopping mom."

" I know." She shrugs. " But I have a couple of important work social things coming up and I have to get a dress or two. I could use your help."

" You mean help you pick out your millionth black dress?" Etta smiles mischievously. " Or maybe we'll be bold and go for a grey?"

Olivia chuckles. " Did anyone ever tell you, being a smart ass is not all that attractive a quality."

" So you married dad just for the good looks then?" Etta retorts, not skipping a beat.

"And here I was going to get someone the jacket they've been lusting after for almost a month…" Olivia clicks her tongue in mock disapproval.

" And now you're bribing me. Something's definitely up." Etta looks at her suspiciously, noting the tiny line across her green irises. " You're worried… I can see it your eyes."

Olivia simply smiles, giving her a shrug. " I can't help it. I never liked the thought of you going over there to be honest. It made me anxious. And then, when your dad told me what happened with the machine. I just… I don't think I've been so scared in so long."

Etta reaches out to take her hand, squeezing it gently. "You can see I am perfectly okay There's nothing to be scared about."

Her mom nods, her expression unconvinced. " I wish that were true. But nineteen years ago that thing took away the person I loved more than anything else in this world, and I couldn't do a thing about it and to think of that happening again." She sighs, swallowing heavily, smiling briefly.

"Ever since you were born, ever since I knew I was pregnant actually, I've been afraid of how us being who we are would make you different and… if there are things that you might experience because of that…..I have to know you'll come to us with that."

" Mom…"

She's looking at her with a pleading expression. "Etta, I know you're strong and I know you don't like asking for help, but these are not things you can deal with on your own. You have to tell us if something changes okay, no matter what, you have to tell me. I can't help you if you keep it to yourself. Okay?"

But Etta has to keep it herself, she realizes. She can't tell her who she was, the horrors in her past, the fact that her hands have killed, tortured… She can't tell her mother how ashamed she feels of this person, this person whom she had looked at in another life and pitied… _pitied._

Because that person had done something unforgivable. She had broken her mother's heart, disappointed her by not being good enough and that's not okay, no matter what her excuse.

And Etta doesn't think she could live with herself if her mother ever actually came to see her that way.

"Okay." She lies.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**~ Over There ~**

Outside a black SUV, a red haired version of her mother stands waiting for them and Etta almost turns around when she sees her, the doppelganger.

She smiles brightly at them, moving to quickly kiss Lincoln on the cheek, before greeting her father. Etta doesn't miss the way he stills, the almost acute discomfort in his posture she can sense as he returns the gesture. There's maybe something else to this story, she feels.

Or maybe, like her, he is overwhelmed by the difference.

Her mother doesn't smirk, or smile that wide. Her laugh is a thing of quiet beauty. Her eyes a darker shade of green, the features so much more delicate. She's biased maybe, but somehow she's so much more beautiful.

But there's something of her in this woman, who's looking at her now with warm, friendly eyes, trying hard and failing to conceal the open delight at the sight of her.

Etta knows what she sees when she sees her, a walking day dream, a what if question answered in the flesh. She only hopes the reality of her measures up somehow to whatever picture there was in her mind.

Etta can't bear the thought of disappointing Olivia Dunham, in any universe.

"You're Etta… Trevor talks about you all the time. You've made quite the impression on my son."

She smiles weakly, remembering to mumble a thank you and trying to not scream with the insanity of it all.

* * *

Olivia can't stop staring at the girl.

It's getting rude at this point, not that Etta seems to notice, busy as she is with gawking out of the window as they drive, her eyes going wide every time she sees something that's not like what she's familiar with.

If she'd had a daughter, she would look exactly like that, she can't help thinking. Maybe not blond hair, but still….

It's like seeing a younger version of herself, if she had ever looked so beautiful at that age that is.

And with eyes that impossible shade of blue, like her father's.

From the corner of her eye she can see Peter Bishop, observing his daughter quietly, smiling at the way her eyes delighted in the sights that were out of the ordinary.

_One of these is not like the other…_

Even after all these years, something about him stirs an emotion in her she doesn't understand, something that she had felt the first time she had laid eyes on him, a feeling best left unexamined if you asked her.

Betrayal is a word that echoes in her mind a lot.

He's still ridiculously handsome in the way he's always been. Sparkling, playful eyes that hide a deep seated goodness, a genuineness masked by nonchalance.

He'd be a good kisser, she finds herself thinking, almost knowing.

Not that she'd want to try. Not that he'd ever even throw a second glance towards her. She knows devotion when she sees it and she's always seen it in him, for the woman from the other side.

She notes the way Etta doesn't let go of his hand for longer than five minutes , the way in which he's quick to cover her anytime an alarm sounded, almost like he were shielding her from dangers they couldn't see.

He looks scared, Olivia thinks, like this universe was simply waiting to pounce and engulf her into its vastness, claim her for its own.

And she doesn't know why, but she sympathizes with that feeling.

If things had been different, if they could….she would have wanted her second child to a be a girl.

It still gets to her, how different and same they were, her and the other, their paths to motherhood so vastly dissimilar. Hers an effortless, happy accident while she struggled for so long just to get pregnant.

Trevor is her own miracle, hard earned. She has wept and prayed and risked everything for that child, put her own life at stake just so she could have him. Lincoln had thought she was crazy, to willingly try for a baby when she knew just how dangerous it was for her to conceive.

But she'd been undeterred. She wanted a child. She wanted to be a mother and nothing anyone else would say could shake her on that. And when it finally happened, she'd literally held her breath, desperately hoping for things to go okay, to be able to carry her baby to term.

Her son meant everything to her, to them and she's hard-pressed to believe the same wasn't the case with Peter and Olivia.

She gives her thoughts a rest as Lincoln pulls into their driveway, Trevor's already waiting for them, an anxious smile on his face, as he scans the backseat, no doubt for Etta. She turns back to Peter, giving him a sly wink.

"Welcome home."

* * *

The sweat travels down her throat in slow trickles, her skin almost on fire from the warm perspiration. The back of her ponytail tickles her nape with its wetness. Her legs have begun to ache critically and she feels like she might be in very real danger of passing out from the exhaustion just then.

But she keeps running.

She runs because it helps her forget…all around downtown, through the campus, across the river… she keeps going, pushing away the memories of a future she never lived in, treading paths that are familiar to her since she was a child, the red brick buildings of Harvard, the mild bustle of downtown Cambridge, quaint cafes and bookstores, the riverside.

She needs to remind herself that this is reality, not destroyed buildings and looted neighborhoods, not the city she loved in ruins.

If she runs hard enough, she can forget that.

If she runs hard enough, she can almost unsee the sight of Simon's disembodied head hooked up to wires.

She finally stops when she approaches the Weeks bridge, forced to pause because her legs just won't go anymore, her breath coming out in thirsty gasps as she holds onto the concrete edge.

She used to sail model ships with Eddie standing on this bridge when they were younger. She'd always win… mostly because her ship was better, thanks to all the tweaks her dad had made to them.

She can see the skyline of the city on the other side, the usual din of pedestrian passengers making their way across the river that separated Cambridge from Boston, Harvard's rowing team making its way below the bridge, making strokes in the water with their usual military precision, gearing up for the October Regatta.

_Etta…_ one of them calls to her, a boy she knows from the Bach society orchestra, he's going to be on the Olympics teams next year, he'd told her. She waves back on autopilot.

_We're doing freestyle races Wednesday evening… you should come,_  he shouts as the boat pulls away.

She smiles, nodding noncommittally. Her father had taught her to row, on a bracing early autumn morning when she was eleven. Her teeth wouldn't stop chattering from the cold, and her hands were almost numb from the icy water and the wind by the time they were done.

She had loved every bit of it…

She searches for a memory, any memory from this other life, anything that told her, she'd been happy, that she'd had some moments of normal.

There was a dog, a brown, adorable little thing. She'd called him Ginger… The couple who took care of her, her foster parents, they'd given it to her as a fifth birthday present. There was a store bought cake with vanilla icing and mac and cheese for a celebration dinner.

She'd also gotten new crayons.

For her real fifth birthday, she'd woken up to a mountain of presents – her first violin, art supplies, a Nintendo and the biggest bucket of Legos… and those were the ones just from her parents.. She'd had a big party at the Museum of Science with all her friends, Astrid had made her a special cake.

For her sixth birthday, they'd gone to Disney World…

She bites back a sob, not for the first time in the past two days, her heart cringing when she thinks of that orphan child, the one who'd never known this life. Who sat through nights, staring out of a window, wishing upon stars and longing to see her parents, the one who stubbornly held onto their fading memories.

The people she had refused to call mom and dad… she'd loved them, respected them, cared for them more than she had certainly ever cared for anyone else. But she had never let them take her parents' place, in that empty pedestal she kept in her heart.. there was only ever room for them.

She shudders, takes a deep breath and begins to run again towards home.

She walks in through the front door and is greeted by the delicious smells of a dinner in progress, something Italian and flavorful, intermingling with the rich upper notes of the scented candles her mom likes to burn in the evenings.

Her parents are in the kitchen. They're chatting softly, laughing about something, her mom dressed in a deep red sweater over a pair of jeans, sipping a glass of wine. She wears a lot more color now than she used to, hues of blue, green, purple. Her dad's chopping stuff for a salad, her mother's arranging some flowers in a vase on the table.

Its Sunday, Etta remembers, her dad always buys her white tulips on Sundays. It's probably the only visible gesture of sentimentality they allow their relationship. Everything about them is always subtle, low-key like the mellow jazz that plays on the ancient record player. She's never known them to be overly demonstrative of their affections, never in public at least. She catches them in their private moments sometimes, when they're slow dancing in the study to Miles or when they're sitting in the porch deck, star gazing over a glass of wine, talking in low voices, their Friday night ritual of watching cheesy horror movies.

She's learnt to recognize the hard way, their singular devotion towards each other, the kind of love they shared, was the kind people wrote about in books, it was extraordinary, irrevocable…timeless even.

" Hi, have a good run?" Her dad's looking at her now, having registered her presence in the house.

She manages to nod, wordlessly taking the water bottle he hands her, she gulps it down in three swift movements.

" You were gone nearly three hours and you look like you sweat half your body mass." Her mom says slowly taking in the sight of her. " What's with all the exercise overdrive?"

" Just felt like it." She shrugs, averting her eyes. " What's for dinner?"

" Dad's making Pasta." Her mom's still watching her too keenly. " And I got some really great artisan bread from the bakery, you're going to love it."

" Sounds great." She mumbles, giving her a small smile. " Do you need any help?"

" No we're almost done here. How about you go shower up and change. We'll eat outside?" Her dad says giving her a smile.

She nods, rushing up the stairs, into her room, struggling to hold in the tears that wouldn't stop anymore. She shuts the door behind her, slumping against the wood, her sobs harsh, tearing from her throat in a guttural desperation, as she cries simply unable to stop anymore.

_You destroyed their marriage..._ the guilt pushes against her chest, making it impossible to breathe when the thought hits her.

The strained silences, the pained looks, the absent wedding rings… that had all been her fault. Her absence had ruined their relationship, created fissures, made them drift apart.

She had seen it with her own eyes.

The one constant to her life had always been her unshakeable faith in her parent's marriage, their love sacrosanct, above reproach.

Except it hadn't been…

Except _she_ had wrecked everything.


	5. Chapter 5

"How's school?" Her father asks her as they settle themselves down on the grass at Harvard Yard. It's their usual lunch spot, by the river.

" Great as usual. Everybody's just freaking out about college admissions right now. " Etta takes the take out box he hands her after wiping her hands on her jeans.

" Isn't it a little early to be worrying about that." He passes her a plastic fork from the paper bag, pulling out his own lunch along with a couple of paper napkins, one of which he hands to her.

" It's prep school dad. We start worrying about college since kindergarten." She shrugs, diving into her food.

" I wouldn't know. I never went to prep school." He smiles at her. " You know Walter wanted me to. But I failed all the entry tests on purpose, so they wouldn't take me. You can imagine his disappointment." He smiles wryly.

"Real mature."

"Hey… I 'd just spent years being bed ridden and sick and I did go through some serious trauma, false memories... false identity, wrong universe, though I don't remember any of it. I didn't want to spend my time in the company of over privileged brats." He chuckles.

She manages a feeble smile, stunned at the casual way in which he glazes over the horrors of his past. There are moments that it still gets to her, even though it's been some time since they told her about everything. It amazes her that even after all that they'd been through, they could simply shrug it off. She ignores the urge to reach out and hug him tight, instead retorting with a comeback like she knew he was expecting her to.

"Oh so I am an over-privileged brat now?"

"You  _are_ an over privileged brat. But you're my brat so I can live with it." He laughs, before giving her a serious look. "Are you worried? About college admissions?"

She almost snorts, thinking about how her dad would react if he knew what was actually keeping her up at nights.

The memories were one thing, but the nightmares… they're eating a hole into her at this point. Ten days and she's yet to have managed a few hours of sleep. Eating a whole meal and actually keeping it down has become a feat of achievement, and she's fairly sure her new found obsession with running - because it helps numb her senses - hard will likely become the death of her.

And yet she's managed to keep her parents from being suspicious, she thinks. Her phantom life has imparted to her some remarkable ability for deception, the skill to conjure up facades of looking and acting okay.

She still does it pretty well, her life…or what she used to think her life was anyway. School, friends, social life, activities, anything to feel normal, anything to keep her parents from suspecting.

But she's operating on empty, and she's going to dry up very soon. And they'll notice, if they haven't already… because her parents always notice. Period.

And they're going to have some very interesting questions. Questions she has no way of answering.

"Believe it or not… that's the farthest thing from my mind right now." She manages to say with a straight face.

"Well in any case you shouldn't. No school in their right mind would even think about not taking you. It's basically a question of where you want to go."

" You're awfully confident."

" I am more than confident. I am certain." He smiles at her. "Kiddo, you have the kind of intelligence that only two percent of the entire general population has. If you'd wanted, you could have finished a PhD by now."

" That's not what I wanted."

" I know. You wanted to enjoy your school life and do lots of other things and I am glad. The last thing I want is for you to grow up before your time."

" Yeah.. that would be a shame wouldn't it." She mumbles, smiling almost humorlessly.

Wrong move… she realizes.

"Is it a boy?"

" Is what a boy?" She looks up from her takeout box to look at her dad who's looking at her with a curious expression. He's sitting cross-legged, mirroring her position, the fork mid-way to his mouth.

" The reason why you've been acting strange lately."

" I haven't been acting strange." She shrugs, averting her gaze as she feels his scrutinizing eyes all over her face, reading her for a reaction no doubt.

" So it's not a boy." He nods as if confirming something to himself. " I knew it wasn't anyway."

" Is that right?"

He nods in a knowing way. " You wouldn't really get hung up over boys, they're the ones that get hung up over you. Because I know you happen to share my stellar confidence and charm when it comes to the opposite sex. "

" Dad! " She gives him a mildly annoyed look

" What… it's true." He chuckles. " You should be thankful. Your mom's flirting skills leave a lot to be desired. It's a good thing she's so beautiful and smart… and that she has me of course." He winks at her.

" Yeah, you're a real catch dad." She rolls her eyes, unable to keep herself from smiling.

He clears his throat. " Speaking of your mother, you should know she is worried about you."

"And you're not?" She gives him a challenging smile.

" Of course I am worried. It's my job to worry. I made you."

" Could you not remind me of that please." She says blandly, biting into her salad, before looking at him suspiciously. " Did mom put you up to this?"

" Put me up to what?"

" Inviting me to lunch so that you can interrogate me?"

" I invited you to lunch so that we could eat lunch." He says pointedly. " And because it's a beautiful day and I thought we could spend a little time together."

" Yeah okay…" She looks at him with a completely unconvinced expression. " That's what you wanted to do."

" Why all the suspicion suddenly?"

" Why all the questions?" She hits back without missing a beat.

" That's what conversations entail." He says "Somebody asks a question and then somebody else answers and so on and so forth. You can ask me questions too you know." he shrugs, not looking contrite in the least.

" Okay fine." She nods. " I have a question for you. What do you know about synaptic thought transfer?"

His head shoots up sharply at  _that_ alright.

" About what now?" His voice is seemingly casual, but the underlying alarm is not unnoticed by her.

" Synaptic thought transfer, thought extraction… it can be modified right." She gives him a knowing look. "The procedure can be adjusted to purge false memories from your consciousness. I know it can be. Walter did it once didn't he?"

" How do you know about that?" He asks her, his eyes serious, all the lightness gone from his tone.

" I read about it." She lies. Well not really. She did read it, in the back office of a Fringe HQ, a building that was the very definition of condemned, Simon had shown her case files of the old Fringe team. He hadn't known anything about her, about her true identity.

" No you didn't. That's classified. You couldn't have read about it."

" Not everything that's classified stays that way dad." She gives him a small smile. " So tell me what it's about."

" The only thing that you have to know about it is that it's very very dangerous." There's a note of finality in his voice.

" But it can be done right?"

He doesn't answer. She takes his silence for a yes.

* * *

" I'll never get over how nice you look in my shirts, better than I ever do."

He smiles, moving his finger down from her cheek to the pit of her neck, down to her throat where the shirt, closes over her skin , with an effortlessness that almost borders on the lazy, he pops open the top button letting his finger dip further.

" Agree to disagree on that." Olivia simply shakes her head, burrowing further against his chest, a contended sigh escaping her lips.

" You're happy ." He begins stroking her hair in gentle, unassuming motions, a soothing gesture meant as much for him as her.

" I just got laid… why wouldn't I be?"

He laughs at that, before bending down to gaze at her, meeting her in the eyes fully, observing the sated look, and lurking behind that something else. Her gaze is fixed on a photo on their nightstand, of their daughter.

" She was so little back then…" He comments, picking it up so they can look at it together. " It's almost unreal how tiny she was."

" Yeah…" Olivia's fingers tracing the infant's face behind the frame. " And we would put her to sleep right here in the bed, between us."

" Only because we were so madly in love with her that we couldn't bear to be away from her." He chuckles. " That got old real fast huh? Turns out no matter how cute babies are, their crying at 2:00 am is not all that adorable."

Olivia smiles, her gaze still fixed on the picture. " She grew up so fast."

" Yeah, she did." He murmurs agreeably. " That's what children tend to do though you know, grow up."

She sighs, nodding absently.

" You're worried." He says knowingly.

" I am not worried."

" Yes you are. You've been worried for a couple of days now. I can see it in your eyes. It's about Etta."

She purses her lips at that, nodding almost imperceptibly, replacing the picture on the nightstand."I am worried because something is wrong and she won't tell me. She's hiding something from us."

Peter nods. "I know, anybody could see that. But you know honey, she's seventeen, almost an adult. She's entitled to her secrets and if she doesn't want to tell us something maybe she has her reasons. And you know how teenagers can get. Every small thing is a major crisis to them."

" This is not just that." She shakes her head. "It's more serious. She's been like this ever since you guys came back from the other side."

" Olivia…"

"Don't tell me you don't see it because I know you do." She shakes her head. " She's barely eating, and she's been crying…a lot. She looks so lost and confused at times and I don't think I've ever seen anyone try so hard at pretending to be okay. She's going through the motions Peter but she's in pain…I can feel it and I can't do a thing about it till she tells me what the hell is so wrong."

" I know you're concerned."

" I am not just concerned. I am frustrated. She doesn't keep secrets from us. You spoke to her today right? Did she seem okay to you?" Olivia asks his, her demeanor having changed almost abruptly. "She must have right, she fakes it really well. But it doesn't fool me. "

" Olivia…"

" There were blood stained tissues in her bathroom." She says quietly, all her earlier tranquility disappeared " I found them today in the trash…"

He simply stares, his heart almost stopping as the implication of what she was telling him.

_No…. just no._  His brain was telling him. This was not happening to them, not again, not ever.

Not to Etta, God not to her…

" No…" He says in a small voice. " No. That's not...that shouldn't be happening. Why didn't you tell me?"

She simply shrugs, biting her lip, almost looking ashamed. " I've been hoping she would. I mean she usually tells you everything Peter."

" Liv, maybe it was just…" He fumbles for a sane explanation, trying not to let his fear paralyze him. It's a poisonous thought infecting him, the echoes of which he sees dancing wildly in Olivia's eyes.

"Liv…" He swallows, trying again to find some words of reason that could help them make sense of all of it. But he never gets to finish his sentence, because in the next moment there's screaming.

_Etta._

Within an instant or less, Olivia is out of the bed, moving out of their room towards the source of screaming. He' s behind by precisely three seconds, pausing to grab his discarded pajamas from the floor, which he slips on with the practiced ease of a man used to bolting in and out of dangerous situations in a split second. He follows Olivia into their daughter's bedroom, ready to confront whatever or whoever was the cause of Etta crying out like that, only to find her alone in the dark bedroom, still asleep in her bed, fidgeting restlessly.

"No…" She moans. "No…no noooo." She screams this time in anguish. " Please no… no… don't kill him."

" Etta." Olivia calls out softly, her postured having relaxed the moment she had ascertained that her daughter was in no real danger. She sits beside her on the bed as she shakes her gently.

"Wake up honey. It's just a bad dream."

But Etta simply shakes her head, eyes still closed, her movements getting more and more agitated.

" God.. no..no…no.. oh god blood…So much blood."

" Etta, kiddo… come on wake up." Peter calls out to her a little more loudly as she starts trashing wildly. Her head hits the wrought iron frame of her bed in her uncoordinated frenzy with a loud, almost resounding thud.

He swears under his breath, immediately reaching out to pin her arms in place to hold her down, his one hand goes to her hair, checking for any wounds.

" Etta. Stop. You're going to hurt yourself." He says, firmly locking her position with his hands, even as she continues to try and fidget away from his grip.

"She won't wake up. It's like… she's in some of trance." Olivia says then, her voice barely above a whisper as she watches Etta, mumbling the same things again and again.

" You killed him." She shouts now. " He's dead." Her voice breaking now as she starts crying, sobbing incoherently like a child would, her eyes still closed.

" He's dead."

"Etta..shh its okay baby." Olivia simply lies down next to her, holding her despite her disoriented attempts to get away. She puts her arms around her daughter and pulls her shaking form into a tight embrace, her fingers reaching out to stroke her hair gently.

" It's okay baby… everything is okay." She whispers repeatedly as Etta continues to sob relentlessly , her movements slowing down considerably as she simply cries in a broken, almost helpless way.

" So much blood." She stammers between tears repeatedly, as she burrows into Olivia's neck, her voice growing fainter and drowsier.

" I know." Olivia murmurs in a soothing voice, even though she knew nothing at all. " I know sweetheart." She shares an anxious look with Peter, who was simply sitting there, looking as shell shocked as she probably did.

His hand comes to join hers as she rubs slow, circles on Etta's back, counting the minutes as her breathing evens out and she finally drifts of to slumber again. Only after making sure she was fully asleep does Olivia let go of her firm but gentle hold of Etta, straightening up she pulls the covers up over her. She readjusts the pillows to make her more comfortable, her hand reaching out to check for the bump on her head, much like Peter had done earlier.

" Its fine. There's no bleeding." He assures her before sighing. "What was that all about?" He asks, voice barely above a whisper, he sounds scared.

Olivia shakes her head wordlessly, her hand reaching out to wipe the angry, tear stained tracks away from Etta's face. She lays a hand on her still warm, flush cheek, grimacing at the sight. To see her daughter in any kind of distress was not something she liked.

But this, watching her break down like this, without being able to help, or even knowing what was happening to her.

It was like all her worst nightmares had come true.

" It's that damn machine." She looks at him. " It did something to her."


	6. Chapter 6

Etta wakes up that morning with a splitting headache, like she has for days now, her head feeling like pins and needles with the addition of a dull but definitely there ache from a pretty big bump on her head.

She remembers falling asleep sometime late in the night, a deep but uneasy slumber, nightmares inclusive even if she doesn't remember then. She's glad she doesn't. The first time had her on her knees in front of the toilet bowl, retching violently, shaking and sobbing trying to unsee the horrors in her dreams, all the while scared that her parents might hear. A couple of nights of that, it's become apparent to her the nightmares were there to stay, so she'd found solace in a childhood ritual her dad had taught her. In the year her grandfather had gone missing and the bad dreams had begun first, of a park in chaos and her all alone.

Always alone…

_Please don't dream tonight. Please don't dream tonight._ His warm, reassuring voice whispering in her ears as he urged her to close her eyes, held her in his arms and rocked her slowly, while she shivered from a non-existent memory. At least she could run to her parents' room and bury herself under the covers between the two of them when the fears struck, wake up in the mornings and find her world unsullied and forget all about them in the midst of French toast for breakfast and finger painting and craft projects and rambunctious bath times with peach shampoo.

_She_  never had that luxury, her nightmares alive and walking, there… even when she woke up. No one had come to comfort her, to hold her in her arms and tell her it was okay, that she was safe now and no one would hurt her.

Endless nights, one shelter after the next, never enough food or warmth, scared and lonely, waiting and hoping for somebody to come rescue her, take her home to her parents.

But no one had come, to make the nightmares go away or to take her home.

No one had come…

Etta shudders, trying to force away the chill that envelops her. She heads to the bathroom shakily, trying not to wince as the sunlight hits her eyes. It's a good thing painkillers were easy to find in their house, given her parent's rather alarming proclivity for getting injured in the line of duty. Snagging a bottle from their medicine cabinet had not been very difficult. She grabs the bottle blindly, wrestling with the cap before shaking a couple of pills out and popping them into her mouth.

In halting movements, she strips to take a shower when she catches sight of her naked reflection in the mirror, trying to not grimace at the dark circles marring her pale coloring and the definite look of fatigue that has set into her eyes. She looks older than before, tired, resembling more and more the girl in her memories. She'd worn her hair at shoulder length, no nonsense clothing, a functional, basics only closet that had never known the joy of a sale bought sundress on a shopping spree with friends…. no makeup she ever recalls owning, save a bottle of perfume, one she'd picked up because it was close to a scent she remembers her mother wearing, one that she still wears in fact.

She's never actually worn her hair that short. As a child she remembers steadfastly refusing to let her hair be cut, putting up a fight anytime her mom dragged her to the salon.

_"Daddieee…..help," She'd screamed, running to her dad, who was lying on the couch, watching a game._

_"Whoa…hey, where's the fire kiddo?"_

_"I don't wanna get a haircut but Mommy says I have to." She'd clambered onto his lap, looking at him like this was the crisis of the century._

_"You don't want to huh?" He'd tucked one the stray locks falling all over her face. At five, it already reached up to her waist. He'd smiled at her mom, who was looking at them with an amused if frustrated expression. "Let her keep it if she wants Liv. What's the harm?"_

_"Oh don't you dare." She'd frowned at him. "She's starting school next week and you're not going to be the one struggling to sort out tangles for twenty minutes every day or washing playground dirt out of little miss Rapunzel's head here, so we're getting a haircut and that's that."_

_"Mommy no…please." She's pleaded, adding a pout for extra effect._

_"Etta come on, this is ridiculous. Stop being so dramatic." She'd sighed. "Baby your hair's gotten too long."_

_"But I want it to be long, just like mama's." She'd looked pleadingly at her dad. "I want to be pretty like her."_

_"You are very pretty." He'd laughed at that. "Prettiest girl I know. Isn't she Liv?" He'd then looked at Olivia, giving her a look, one that he knew she was powerless to resist, wordlessly asking her to indulge their daughter yet again._

_"Fine. What can I do when the two of you gang up on me like that?" She'd huffed then, looking disapprovingly at the two of them, as she held out her hand to Etta. "But we are getting a trim at least and I don't want any arguments about that. You look like a wild child."_

A child's worldview was so unrepentantly selfish, Etta thinks, as she remembers the incident, never seeking to see beyond one's own desires and wants. Confident, overwhelmingly so, that the world would simply reconfigure itself to do their bidding. The truth was her mother didn't  _have_  twenty minutes to spare every morning, sorting out tangles gently, so as to not pull at her scalp, brushing the tresses carefully. Hell, she didn't have five to eat breakfast...But she had made the time for her, even in between her insane schedule, and when she couldn't her dad would… try at any rate.

It brings a smile to her face. To think now, how she'd taken her parents for granted without ever once thinking about the fact that they had identities that went beyond being her mom and dad. That maybe they would have wanted to do better things with their scant free time then watch  _The Little Mermaid_  with her for the 200th time.

It's not a liberty you can take with anybody else, she realizes just then as she stares into the mirror. Even now her hair falls well below her shoulders, making the resemblance to her mother that much more pronounced. Somehow in the middle of everything, it's a comforting thought. Her gaze furrows as she catches sight of something else. There's a scar on her left hip-bone where yesterday there was nothing but smooth, untarnished skin. Like she had been rammed again a really hard surface with a lot of force. She reaches out to feel it with her fingers, feeling the texture of the wound. For a mark that appeared simply overnight, it looks… aged, fading, skin discolored but healed for most part. There's no pain.

When had she gotten this scar?

It must be something from her other life…she concludes, feeling insane for even making the connection, but it was the only logical reason that could explain why she would suddenly be sporting such a scar. It certainly couldn't have been from anything she had done. But in another life, she had gotten hurt more than once, pretty badly. Violence was just…part of life. She remembers when her father's frantic expression when she had come out of Markham's building, when he had seen her bloodied lip…

She rubs at the abrasion, in the irrational hope that it would somehow just go away. It's disconcerting to bear the actual physical marks of what had till now only existed as a memory. Not to mention the fact that if either of her parents saw this scar, they would have a meltdown. They were fairly good about giving her space and to her knowledge had never tried to control her in any way with excessive rules or questions… but the one thing she did know was, when it came to her safety and wellbeing, they were extremely protective. If this came to their notice, then she wouldn't be able to talk herself out of anything. Hell, her mother would probably drag her to an interrogation room if that's what it took to make her spill.

_Maybe it's not such a bad idea to tell them…_

Why was she being so reluctant to confide in them? It was not the kind of relationship they had. They talked, a lot, about everything. They were good at listening, at taking care of her problems when she couldn't handle them on her own and realistically she knew they were really the only ones who would have a clue as to what was happening to her.

Except she can't, and that's just the way it is going to have to be.

She showers and gets dressed, gathering her book bag and her violin case, going through her day's schedule, reminding herself of the thousand and one things she needed to get done. Just because she was dealing with an identity crisis of epic proportions didn't mean the world was going to stop and give her time to sort out stuff. She still had school and music and all her other clubs and activities, not to mention her friends.

It almost feels ungrateful to crib about having a full life… but all Etta wants to do right now is switch off, to leave everything behind and sit somewhere and let the noise in her head turn to silence. But disengaging has consequences. For one it would draw her parent's attention, not to mention it would take away the only façade of normalcy she's been clinging to.

Feeling slightly better as the pills kick in, she makes her way downstairs. Her parents are standing around the kitchen island with their coffee mugs, talking in low voices.

"Morning guys." She greets them, making them look up. "Sorry can't stay for breakfast. I promised Leah I'd meet her before classes. We have to go over our project." Faking an urgency that she far from feels, she pulls out a travelling mug from one of the cabinets and begins to fill it up with coffee. "I am going to be late coming home too, so don't start calling the emergency rooms alright?" She jokes.

They don't smile. Her mother simply gives her an exhausted, almost knowing look.

"Etta, sit down." She motions to one of the stools.

"Mom I have to go," She begins to protest but stops when she catches her expression.

"Etta, please, sit down. We need to talk."

She sinks into one of the stools obediently at her stern look, shrugging a little in nonchalance. "I am going to be late you know. Can't it wait till after school?

"No it can't." Her father responds this time, his expression mirroring her mother's, if a little softer. "Don't worry; I already called your school. Told them you were sick. You get the day off."

"You did what? You can't do that. I have stuff to do."

"You can get it done later." Her mom shrugs. "This is more important."

Etta chuckles nervously. "Am I in trouble?"

"I don't know. Are you?" Her dad asks her, an ironic smile on his face.

"Not to my knowledge, I am not." She shrugs, taking a sip out of her coffee. "Unless you count cutting school on false pretenses, which if they ask me, I am going to say was all your doing by the way."

Olivia sighs, her hand coming up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Etta please, this is serious. You're not going to be able to joke your way out of this." She looks up then, swallowing heavily, giving her a hesitant if somewhat pained smile. She moves closer, reaching to caress her cheek with one hand.

"Sweetheart, is there something you're not telling us?" She asks hopefully.

"No,' Etta says too quickly, in a flat voice, unable to bear the abject disappointment in her mother's eyes that sets in at her response. She's seen it once before and she doesn't like being on the receiving end of it for any reasons.

"Don't lie to me." Olivia shakes her head, her voice turning slightly stern in the way it usually got when she went all  _mom means business._ "I know something's wrong. You're barely eating or sleeping and don't think I don't know you've been crying. You know, you don't have to hide anything from us. Whatever it is, I promise we'll deal with it."

"Mom, I am fine." She says firmly, with a straight face.

"You're lying again." Olivia shakes her head in disbelief. "Do you call screaming and crying in the middle of the night in hysteria being fine?"

Etta looks at her in sharp surprise.

"You don't remember last night do you?" She looks grim, her arms folded across her chest. "You literally had a breakdown. Peter had to restrain you because we were afraid you'd hurt yourself. "

"It must have been a nightmare." Etta shrugs, her eyes masking her emotions rather convincingly. Apparently she's really good at lying. Who knew.

"You know I get those from time to time."

"No. This wasn't that. I know what those are like. I've helped you through them for years." Olivia says dismissively, sighing in frustration. "Etta, I am not letting this slide till I get an explanation for what's going on with you. You're only making things difficult when I they doesn't have to be. "

"I don't know what to tell you then, because there's nothing going on with me."

Peter, who's mostly been silent so far, lays a hand on Olivia's shoulder, squeezing gently. He understands her desperation, but he can also read their daughter fairly easily, knowing the approach isn't particularly working. Olivia for all her expertise at interrogation was not capable of manipulation with those she loved.

It's not something that would stop him though. He recognizes the look in his daughter's eyes. The latent, but unmistakable look of someone who was hiding secrets, it's really like looking into a mirror. Her attempts at deception through deflection are something he would have done, a move that's got Bishop written all over. He shares a look with his wife.  _I got this_ , he tells her without needing to say the words and she nods, a weak if thankful smile on her face. He then moves closer to Etta, reaching for her hand with his own, closing over her fingers.

"Kiddo look at me." He says gently and she has no choice but to meet his gaze. The kind acceptance in his eyes is almost too much. "You're not in any trouble, not with us at least. The only thing that matters to us is making sure you're okay, that you're safe and if something's happening to you, something you don't understand, no matter how scary or confused it might make you feel, you have to tell us or we can't help you."

Like he expects, she reacts badly, defensively. But he's unperturbed, almost gladdened. Anger was good, better than rehearsed compliance. Anger could be pushed.

"Maybe I don't need your help." She retorts in a curt voice, pulling away from his hold. "Does it ever occur to either of you that I am not a child anymore. That I can take care of my own problems."

He seems undeterred by her sudden burst of hostility, looking amused if anything. "You almost made that sound convincing."

"Dad." She stammers, her voice faltering, robbed of all her steely resolve, dangerously close to tears. She's so tired of this act, tired of feeling her edges rubbed rough, enough to leave scars, holding everything in, walking around in a daze, bearing guilt for actions she's never committed, exhausted with the burden of carrying the weight of two lives.

She's only seventeen, and she's already so tired.

"You don't have to worry about me. I am perfectly okay." She manages to say weakly, standing up then. She has to get out of here before she lost it completely.

"Yeah I can see that." His voice is gently, laced with a twinge of irony, as he lays a hand on her shoulder. "You always start shaking uncontrollably like that when you're perfectly okay."

The simple touch is all it takes to break the floodgates and the next thing she knows, the tears are making their way slowly down her cheek, despite every cell in her body fighting the urge to cry. Tears are a frustrating response to her problems, they don't make anything better.

And yet she can't stop them anymore than she can move from her spot, rooted as she feels.

"Etta," He's speaking to her again, his voice barely above a whisper, his hand reaches out to wipe away the wetness on her face. "Whatever it is, it can't be that bad that you feel you need to hide it from us."

She shakes her head, wrapping her arms around her waist tight, trying to move away from his touch, but he doesn't relent.

"You'd hate me if you knew."

Would they be here still? If they saw the darkness in her and knew what she was capable of? Would they still think of her as their little girl, or would they recoil from her in disgust, from the stranger who lives under her skin now. Look at her and wonder who this was, this adulterated version of her.

Would they be ashamed of her?

Would they love her still?

He resists the urge to laugh at her ridiculous statement, attuned to her highly distressed state, despite her increasingly failing attempts at maintaining stoicism. "I doubt that very much." He says instead. "Try me."

She finally meets his gaze, her eyes wide, bluer and wetter than he remembers, an acute pain, one that almost looks ancient, permeating through every shard of her gaze, before looking at her mother.

"If I tell you what it is," She takes a shaky breath. "Will you promise to help me get rid of it, no matter what it takes?"

Olivia simply nods, too stunned to say much else, her eyes rife with an anxiety that was now beating wildly against her chest. "We'll take care of it. We'll do everything we can. Just tell me please, I can't bear to see you hurt you so much." She reaches out again now, holding her hand like Peter had just a few minutes before.

"You promise." She repeats stubbornly, her eyes hard, unyielding.

"Of course I promise. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you. You know that don't you? Etta… I love you so much."

She laughs through a still tear wracked voice, hollow, eyes turning vacant as the memory, the strongest of them all washes over her. "The last time you said that to me… I was dying. I was so grateful. I wanted to hear you say it, because I wasn't sure that you did...love me, that you could ever love the person that I'd become."

"Etta, what are you talking about?"

"So alone… all those years." She whispers. "And I kept thinking every day, you'd come for me. That I'd see you and everything would be okay and I waited and waited but no one came."

"Honey…" Olivia interrupts her gently, sharing a visibly confused look with Peter.

"I couldn't even picture your faces anymore…." She shakes her head, looking right through her. "There was nothing, nothing to hold onto," she clutches at the fabric of her shirt at her chest, grasping at an imaginary totem, 'except, the bullet that saved the world."

"What did you just say?" Peter's expression is alert at once, when he hears the last part of her sentence. He shakes her gently then, trying to get her attention.

"The bullet that saved the world." She looks at him, though she doesn't appear to register him in her sights, a sad almost heartbreaking smile on her face. "That's what you call it isn't it? Why is that?"

"How do you know about that?" He asks, looking over her shoulder to meet Olivia's gaze with a questioning expression, confirming with her that she hadn't told her about it.

"So much blood…" Etta chokes back a sob, her eyes turning frantic and unbelievably calm at the same time "it's everywhere…on my hands. He's choking me. It hurts so much," she gasps.

"Etta are you okay?" Peter shakes her a little more insistently, his expression turning more and more worried, as she gasps again, as if struggling for breath.

"It hurts so much…." her voice is now a strangled whisper, her face drained of all blood, body going limp in his hold.

"Peter…" Olivia calls to him, her expression turning almost chalk white. "Look at her neck…" His eyes widen as he notices then, red angry lines forming on her throat, indentations of finger marks pressed against pale skin.

"Oh my god…" He lays a hand against her neck, rubbing at the marks. "What's happening to you? Etta, come on breathe… its okay honey, just breathe."

"He's going to kill me." She mumbles, coughing then. Peter curses when he sees a little blood come out.

"Oh god….." Olivia exclaims when she sees the red trickle down the corner of her lip; she reaches out with her hand to wipe it away. "Peter what the hell is happening to her?"

"But I am not afraid. I don't have to be afraid." Etta continues to speak, still making no sense, her eyes open, but in the same kind of trance that she seemed to be yesterday night. She inhales sharply just after, screaming in pain, clutching her chest.

She collapses to the floor.


	7. Chapter 7

_In the great green room, there was a telephone, and a red balloon. And a picture of a cow jumping over the moon…_

She rocks slowly, gently, sitting on the chair with Etta on her lap, curled up against her chest, as she reads in a soft voice.

_…Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere…_

She shuts the book close.

"Ready for bed baby?" She asks, pressing a kiss to Etta's temple. Her daughter's hair tickles under her chin, where her head is nestled against her. It's soft, unbelievably so, loose curls slowly giving way to straighter hair as it grew in length, traces of a beautiful and rich chestnut mingling with lighter flaxen locks.

Etta shakes her head, eyes at half mast, little nimble fingers playing with the neckline of her sweater in droopy listless movement.

"Sing a song momma." She says to her sleepily, yawning midway through her sentence.

"What song do you want me to sing?" Olivia squeezes her flannel covered foot lightly, dressed in bright red footie pajamas, the one that Peter said made her look like a little fire engine, she looks like she was simply born to stand out.

"Sing the moon song mommy." She mumbles, burrowing further against her.

"I don't know if I know all the words…." She nuzzles Etta's nose, making her giggle. "You'll have to sing along." It's a game they love to play, with Olivia pretending to forget words to a song and Etta joining in to help her.

"I see the moon and the moon sees me..." She hums softly.

"Down through the leaves of the old oak tree." Etta chimes in for her.

_Please let the light that shines on me,_

_Shine on the one I love_

"I love you." She whispers as she finishes the last verse. She looks down to see the sleeping child in her arms.

Only she's gone.

"Etta?" She looks around the nursery, which doesn't look the same anymore, ravaged, torn wallpaper and destroyed furniture.

"Etta where are you?" She shouts frantically, as the room spins around her.

"Mommy...help me." A distant voice calls to her from somewhere.

"Etta?"

"Olivia…" Someone's shaking her gently.

"Etta…no…"

"Liv…"

She gasps, opening her eyes, to find Peter next to her, her head resting on his shoulders. She registers her surroundings with lightning fast efficiency, the waiting lounge at Massachusetts General.

_Etta…_

They rushed her in here after she collapsed, coughing up blood. The doctors had disappeared with her behind those white doors and they had been left to wait and worry…

"What happened?" She asks, glancing at her watch. It's been four hours.

It's been too long…

"You fell asleep." He tells her, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead. "Come on, the doctor will see us now."

She nods, running her palms over her face to stop herself from trembling, allowing Peter to pull her up lead her from the lobby to the ward, her grip on his hand tight.

* * *

"What do you mean you don't know what's wrong with her?" Olivia looks at the man incredulously.

"It's unclear as to what really has happened." The doctor flounders, looking rather confused. "There was a significant amount of internal bleeding, lacerations in the chest cavity, thankfully no damage to internal organs, but still, substantial internal injuries… all things that would be consistent with some kind of stabbing or… a gunshot wound." He finishes off.

"She wasn't shot." Olivia shakes her head, swallowing hard. "We were right there. She couldn't have been."

"I don't doubt you at all." He nods. "There is no entry wound anywhere on her body, to indicate she was shot or even hurt in any way. Not even a flesh wound and yet her insides have been severely damaged. It's hard to explain."

"Could it have been some sort of aneurysm?" Peter asks then, trying to keep a calm tone. His knuckles rolled up in fists.

"That's one possibility." He purses his lips. "Though I have to admit, it's nothing like any aneurysm I've seen before, and the strangulation marks of course remain unexplained." He pauses then, giving them a significant look. "Are you absolutely sure that your daughter wasn't assaulted recently? Because it's possible she might have hidden the incident from you…perhaps a violent boyfriend."

"Are you kidding me?" Olivia's voice is harsh, bordering on hysterical laughter, her hand digging into Peter's as she looks at the flustered man in front of her.  "You think I would let anybody harm my child?"

" I am not suggesting anything of the sort." He immediately backtracks. "I am only trying to ascertain the cause of her injuries."

"It doesn't matter what the cause of her injuries are." Peter shakes his head, his expression taut, unforgiving. "That can wait. What matters right now is that she's okay and she's okay…right?" He looks at the other man with a non-compromising look, one that didn't care to be contradicted.

"Well physically she should make a full recovery, but…" He swallows uncomfortably again, looking perplexed. "We did a scan and though there's absolutely nothing unusual about her brain activity, we can't seem to wake her. She seems to have slipped into a coma, which is something that should not have happened."

"Oh God…" Olivia sways on her feet, grabbing blindly for Peter, who instinctively holds on to her waist to steady her. "No."

"Ms. Dunham we're confident she should come around…"

"You don't even know what's happening to her and you're confident?" She scoffs at him. "That's supposed to be reassuring?

"Liv…" Peter reaches for her immediately but she moves away from him, shaking her head. She doesn't meet his eye, taking a deep breath before looking at the doctor with a collected expression.

"I'd like to see my daughter now."

* * *

At first glance, she simply looks asleep, the long blond hair, loosely framing her pale face, eyes closed, but he can see the limpness in her form, the all too uneasy stillness in the way she lies there, physically intact, even the strangulation marks seem to be fading and yet, everything about her feels damaged, drained of vitality. The ever so slight rise and fall of her chest is the only reassuring sign of life.

She looks…broken.

 _Déjà vu_ , Peter thinks, trying not to throw up as the sick feeling inside bubbles over, turning his stomach violently. Twenty years ago, he had been at this place once, looking upon another achingly familiar face, inches away from almost certain death. He watches Olivia take the place he had once, sitting beside Etta on the bed, running gentle hands through her hair.

He almost doubles over at the memory, the dangerous thoughts it was causing to seep into his mind.

 _No. No. No…._  he tells himself, clenching his fist so tight that it almost draws blood.

This was not happening. Not again…

"Will I die from this daddy?" Etta had asked him once, all seriousness and seven years old, looking up at him with curious eyes while he'd been dabbing calamine lotion over her chicken pox rashes.

"Of course not." He'd laughed. "What makes you say that?"

"Because sometimes people die when they get sick." She'd shrugged in that nonchalant way of hers, the one that was so like Olivia.

"Yeah, they do." He'd nodded, giving her a smile, amused by her bluntness. "But not from chicken pox. You don't have to be scared about dying."

"I am not scared." She'd told him with another careless shrug, her attention already back on the comic book open in her lap.

Etta was seven months old when she fell ill for the first time and it had scared him in a way that Irish mobsters will never have anything on. A mere fever, and he had lost all ability for rational thought, a mess of nerves and all around general unhelpfulness , while Olivia had been the much needed voice of reason, trying in vain to explain to him that the situation was far from dire, nothing a dose of Tylenol and a cool bath couldn't abate.

But he hadn't been reassured, not till after hours later when the fever had broken.

"She's fine Peter." Olivia had told him with a mild, exasperated smile as she rocked a slightly drowsy but mostly fine Etta in her arms. "You can breathe now."

He likes to think he's gotten better since then, panic and ignorance having long given way to the kind of parental efficiency that comes with time, having learnt over the years all the remedies and cures for common ailments, made every comfort food and mastered all the ways in which to care for a sick child.

But the truth is that fear has never left him. It's a familiar grip on his heart, he knows all its signs – the way his stomach hollows out, and his pulse rattles at an astonishing haste, the way his mind jumps from one frightening conclusion to the next, the way that paralyzes him.

It had resurfaced at every instance, every little scratch and wound he had bandaged and kissed, every fever and ache and cold and thoroughly unremarkable illness through which he had sat with her in bed watching cartoons and playing board games. All through her childhood, the thought of her taking ill the way he had at the same age, that somehow he had passed down to her more than the color of his eyes and a genetic propensity for trouble; that the illness that had ravaged him all those years ago and claimed the Peter of this world would come for her too and he wouldn't be able to do anything… His memories of that part of his life were faint at best and yet they were enough to terrify him, turn into his worst fear, that his daughter would spend months like him, bed ridden, in and out of hospitals, weak and isolated from the world, slipping in and out of consciousness till one day, when she would never wake up again.

Like she might never now…

"What's happening to her Peter?" Olivia asks, her voice, lost, beyond hurt. "How can this be happening to her?"

Peter doesn't answer her.

Fate's an unbelievable bitch, he thinks.


	8. Chapter 8

Olivia has always known this day would come.

Someday her child would have to pay a price… just for being hers…

The certainty is no comfort really.  She would tell Peter  _I told you so_...for all the times he had dismissed her apprehensions, told her in gentle but firm terms that she was being silly, except there is no pleasure to be had in being right.  She hadn’t wanted to be right about this, she had wanted to be wrong…desperately. 

But it’s an immutable constant in her life, the people she loved always got hurt, and somewhere, somehow it’s on her.

It’s  _always_ on her.  

This was her fault. Her fault for not having listened to her instincts sooner, for having ignored what was happening to Etta, blinded by love, by the absolute trust in her daughter to confide in them.  After all candor had come so easily to her as a child, especially with Peter. Since she had found the ability to form words, Etta had sought her father out to be her confidant. The one she shared all her secrets with, whom she automatically went to with every question that sprung in her curious mind.  She would recant to him with great fervor every little innocuous little detail of her life, every new experience, small or big that happened to her while they sat on the floor playing with Legos.

And yet, some tendencies Etta had carried in her genes it would seem, the need to shut people off, to handle everything on her own. In the end, she had done precisely what her parents would… _would have_   _years ago_ , Olivia corrects herself, before she and Peter had learnt the hard way that their burdens were better shared than carried alone. 

In this way, Etta was more like them than Olivia would have liked.

Whatever it was that had led to this…if only she had told them, given them the chance to help her, to fix this.

If only…

Tonight, a lifetime of apprehension comes back to haunts her…

She had entered motherhood on decidedly shaky ground, racked by insecurities that were too deeply etched in her to ever go away completely, the fear of failing, of falling short, of losing what had come her way, of never trusting anything to stay.  But more that, she’d been tormented by that disconcerting feeling that tugged at her consciousness, telling her again and again that her calling lay elsewhere, that she was always meant for a life that had no place for the joys and responsibilities of family. That feeling that had so viciously battled with her overwhelming desire to love and care for her child, to appreciate fully having her in her life.

When was it she had stopped feeling so conflicted, Olivia wonders now?  Like a weight lifted of her shoulders, it had simply drifted away inexplicably. How did that happen?

Was it because of Walter being gone? Because of what that did to Peter?

She remembers all the times she held him through the nights, the way she still did sometimes, when he would cling to her desperately, holding on like she was the only thing keeping him afloat at sea. He never said anything to her, having long ago exhausted the stilted conversations they’d had over the matter.  But the sorrow of a loss never quite gone away permeated through his every pore on those nights, telling her things that the tears he stubbornly refused to shed never could. 

For the first time in their relationship, the equation had changed and she had to be the one holding them together, keeping him from falling apart.

But even then, when Walter’s disappearance had left a gaping void in their lives and their family, and Olivia had been doing just about everything she could to keep them going, something had changed in her that year...for the better.  She’d found an indescribable peace that had eluded her for so long, a sense that something was finally right. For the first time, she had let go of her reservations and allowed herself to love her daughter like she’d always wanted to, without hesitation or doubt or guilt.

She should have  _known_  it wouldn't stay…

She idly looks out from the blinds of the window, trying to not dwell on those feelings, trying to keep herself together.

The approaching sound of an ambulance, blue and red flashes, gurneys…the images are not new. 

The hospital is a familiar place to her. Too familiar… her life’s  story  is woven in and out of its many floors and wings. From the day she woke up screaming after the explosion and found herself in a world of nightmares.

They’d kept John in the 7th floor, in the quarantine wing when they were still uncertain of what had happened to him.  In the East Wing, she had waited anxiously, her heart in her mouth, in the lobby while Peter lay unconscious at the mercy of an uncertain fate while the world around them was ending.

It was here she’d found out about her pregnancy, when in between rattling off blood pressure and heart rate stats, and telling her other things she couldn't care less about ,  her doctor had  casually inserted that little addendum to her prognosis.

 _“There is something else that came up in your blood-work that you should know…”_  He had said, almost like an afterthought.

She thinks of the smile on Peter’s face when she’d told him. The relief that has washed over her when she saw the proof of his happiness.  It never left him for the next few days.

If you went down two floors and made a right, you reached the maternity ward. Seventeen years ago, she had given birth to her daughter in one of those candy colored private rooms. Hazy memories of the hours of labor flood her, through which she had squeezed Peter’s hand out of shape, while he murmured indistinguishable words of comfort and encouragement.

There was pain, a lot of it. That much she remembers.

But she remembers everything that happened after, every second. The exhaustion, the relief, the sheer  _everything_  of the moment Etta had announced her presence to the world, a bundle of pink, impossibly soft flesh and warmth, wriggling agitatedly when placed in her father’s shaky embrace in some untold urgency to absorb her new environment.

Olivia had observed through tired eyes, the look on Peter’s face, the awe as he held her, clumsy in the way a man who has never held a baby would be but still with a measure of confidence that was entirely Peter.

“She’s here. She’s really here Liv.” He’d laughed through tears that would not be stemmed, as he studied the infant with an intense look of concentration, one he usually reserved for wave sync machines sent from the future.

 “That’s great.” She had nodded with an amused smile, the pain fading away like it had never existed.  ”Mind if I take a look. I put a lot of work into her you know.”

Olivia remembers how she had refused to let go when Peter had tried to transfer her into her arms, clearly having picked her favorite early on, grabbing at his shirt with fidgety tiny fingers, protesting with disgruntled cries when he pried the fabric free from her hold and settled Etta in her waiting arms.  

“It’s okay baby. He’s not going anywhere. I just want to hold you too.” Olivia had chuckled, as Etta following the sound of her voice, turned towards her then to meet her gaze. She had blinked – still unfocused blue eyes – slowly, through sinfully long lashes at her for a few long seconds as if making a judgment in her favor before the fight finally left her restless limbs and pressing an ear against her chest, she sniffled contently.

And just like that… she had fallen in love.  Head over heels, the kind that made you float on air love.

 _Perfect._  That only word every cell in her body was echoing as she ran her hands through the downy head of her newborn, where fine strands of what appeared to be blond hair were already present, and the smooth roundness of her baby cheeks. Olivia had counted with delight, ten of the tiniest fingers and toes she had ever seen and pressed kisses to each one of them, marveling at the little hands and legs.

But it’s the eyes that had stolen her heart, just like they had all those years ago. She may have inherited her physicality for the most part, but the eyes made her all Peter’s.  Etta smiled with them, a sly grin that always hid more than it revealed, like it carried a secret… so like her father.

A devastating thought occurs to her then, yanking her cruelly from the warmth of her  memories.

She may never see her daughter smile again.  

She may never hear her laughter or her voice, or feel the warmth of her embrace, that unapologetic way in which she would hug her, fierce, generous and giving, the way she would call her in the middle of work just to say hi and remind her to eat lunch.

Olivia didn't know to do this without her, any of it.  Her family existed because of her daughter. It’s a debt she owes her child; her marriage, her life, all the happiness. Etta had made possible by being who she was. She kept them together, gave them something other than themselves to anchor their lives to, breaking that ridiculous pattern of loss and gain Peter and her had been stuck in for so long. 

Children shouldn't be used to fix relationships, but that’s exactly what their daughter had done for them, taken every uncertainty, every heartbreak, everything that had been wrong with them and made it seem irrelevant in the scale of things.

She had salvaged them in more ways than one.

Without Etta, there was nothing.

Olivia turns away from the window as another ambulance arrives, sinking into the armchair as the crushing realization washes over her.

She allows herself to finally break then, just a little, a single tear making its way down her cheek, carrying all the enormity of her sorrow.  She wipes it away even before it makes it halfway, her hand shaking ever so slightly.

She then braces herself with a deep breath, and resumes her silent vigil.

 

* * *

 

 

He’s not just mad. He’s  _pissed._

Of the veritable plethora of emotions his daughter was capable of inciting in him, the full gamut of which Peter’s sure he’s yet to experience; anger was something he never thought he’d feel.  Over the course of his parenting career, he’s  gone through more than his share of irritability and frustration  at Etta’s less than angelic moments (of which there was no dearth, Olivia would attest to that.), but even her most brattish childhood offense had never evoked the kind of  ire that’s burning him up from the insides right now.

She’d  _lied_ to him.

She’d  looked him in the eyes and lied, given him empty assurances and shrugged away his questions with playful banter, all the while battling something so terrible that it that had left her broken and bruised on a hospital bed

It feels like a slap in the face.

The overwhelming trust he had placed in her betrayed so callously by willful deceit. She couldn't have hurt him more if she’d been aiming for the jugular; Peter thinks, his hands shaking as he rifles through the folders in the study haphazardly, effectively destroying a meticulous filing system perfected over the years with every paper he tossed carelessly. He’s not a man prone to disorganization and knows if he just calmed down for a second, he’d know exactly where to find what he was looking for.

But that’s not exactly an option right now.  The anger feels good in some sick, twisted way. Feeling that is better at any rate than letting himself open to the soul numbing fear of losing Etta that’s lurking right under its skin.  That poisonous thought that he tried to leave behind at the hospital.

And even more than the anger he feels at her, he knows the real object of his fury is himself.

This was his fault. He should have never let her anywhere within ten miles of that blasted machine.   After all, that  _thing_  had obliterated his son from existence, erased every trace of him from the universe.

How could he have been so stupid to not realize it could harm Etta? How could he have taken such a risk?

 _“Some genius”_ , he mutters humorlessly, searching, his movements frantic, disturbed, snippets of conversation he’d had with his father sixteen years ago playing back in his head.

_Trace amounts of Cortexiphan….not significant… shouldn’t affect her._

The battery of tests they’d run in her infancy, all of Massive Dynamic’s cutting edge resources at their disposal and the best if slightly addled scientific mind anyone could hope for and yet... they knew so little, had learnt next to nothing about how their daughter’s origins and parentage could impact her, made her different.

A glitch in the universe somewhere combined with malfunctioning contraception to create a life form resonating in the intermediate harmony between A and G.   _The key of ‘E’_  ...

In every sense, her existence should have been impossible. And yet she had come to be, in a body that had become its own enemy, was being systematically weaponized, had been very much  _dead_ for seven whole minutes.

Not only had she come to be, she had _survived,_ through Olivia’s resurrection, through everything else, she had survived and emerged into this world, unscathed and perfect.

There had never been an explanation for any of it.

Walter had done what he did best, hypothesize.  He’d made extensive notes detailing increasingly frightening predictions that he’d based on the scant information they had managed to obtain, the complete file of which Peter had tucked away in a drawer somewhere, the one Olivia knew nothing about.

It’s the only secret he’s ever willingly kept from his wife, a decision he’s never regretted. It was bad enough to see his worst fears verbalized in Walter’s startlingly cold and objective hand, but to subject Olivia to that was out of the question. 

He finally pulls it out, the box that contained Walter’s files on Etta, along with his own files and tapes on the machine, blueprints, diagrams, lab notes, everything he had from the old days.

Being his father’s son came with some advantages, Peter muses darkly as he goes over Walter’s notes. He had inherited in no small portion his scientific temperament; that detached ability to look at his own child like an experiment and understand her for the anomaly that she was, break her down into DNA and blood and matter and energy and study her piece by piece.  

In there had to be something,anything that would help him understand what was happening to Etta. Something that he could use to help her.

There had to be _something_.

* * *

 

_“You’re being silly.” Olivia laughs as Etta splashes around wildly in the tub, displacing a large portion of soapy water onto her shirt.  It was futile to try to remain dry when it came to giving her a bath as Etta’s getting clean seemed to be directly connected to either her or Peter being drenched to the bone, every single time._

_Only yesterday she had found herself wistfully longing for the day when her daughter would be old enough to do things on her own and she would finally be spared the impromptu wet t-shirt competition every other night._

_And yet today, it feels like she’s almost grateful to be watching her there year old flood the entire bathroom in her enthusiasm for playing in the tub._

_She would do this for every day of every year for the rest of her life gladly, Olivia thinks, not really understanding why._

_“Alright honey, time to get out.” She finally says, reaching in to pull out the plug. She stands up  to grab the towel._

_“Noooo… five more minutes,” comes the expected protest and Olivia simply shakes her head.  Not knowing how to tell time yet, Etta’s go to measure for everything was five more minutes._

_“That’s what you say every time.”  She says, turning around with the towel in her hand only to find an empty tub with the water slowly draining away._

_“Etta…” Olivia looks around. “Where’d you go?”_

_She peeks her head out of the bathroom to look into the nursery, frowning when she finds that empty as well._

_“Etta get back here. You’ll get water all over the floor and you’re going to get hurt if you slip and fall.” She calls out louder this time, her eyes automatically scanning the wooden floor to check for the tell-tale little wet footprints that would lead her to her miscreant child._

_Except there aren't any. She walks into the passage, opening door after door, calling her name._

_“Peter…” She calls out, growing increasingly frantic, as the house morphs into a crowded tent There are wounded people everywhere, chaos all round, a throbbing pain in her head, the acrid smell of explosives on her tongue    “Peter I can’t find her.”_

_“Etta…”_

_“Mom...help me. Please you have to help me.”_

_“Etta where are you?”_

_“Mom… Please… I am so scared.”_

_“Etta…”_

_“Aunt Liv…”_

_“Aunt Liv…”_   She can feel someone shaking her shoulder insistently.

Olivia opens her eyes to find her niece kneeling in front of her, watching her with anxious eyes.

“Ella?”

“Aunt Liv, are you okay?” She squeezes her hand gently. “You were calling out Etta’s name in your sleep.”

“ Umm yeah... I must have been dreaming.” She shrugs, standing up, trying to shake off the awful feeling that was still with her.  She doesn't get to think much of it in any case as she’s engulfed into a tight embrace from her niece in the next instant.  At twenty six, she still hugs her with all the abandon and sincerity of a four year old.  Olivia hugs back on reflex, not thinking anything of Ella’s presence in the hospital in that moment, only grateful that she is  _here_

“Hi sweetheart.”  She smiles like always when they break apart , mustering a somewhat upbeat expression, channeling a lifetime’s experience in keeping bad news from her family. Today it takes everything in her and more to keep that insincere smile plastered. “What are you doing here?” She asks then.

“Nina called me.”  She says flatly, her eyes briefly drifting towards Etta, looking distinctly hurt that she didn't hear of it from Olivia herself.

“I told her not to bother you.”   Olivia sighs, her facade melting away in that instant.

“I am glad she did. You’re not allowed to keep things like this from family.”  Etta shakes her head at her sternly, looking in that minute, as frighteningly mother hen as Rachel did, and Olivia can’t help a smile, a genuine one this time.

“I wasn't keeping anything from you.” She assures her. “I just didn't want to alarm you without cause.”

“Have you called mom? You know she’d want to know.” She folds her arms across her chest, looking at her expectantly.

“I don’t want to ruin her trip. She’s been looking forward to it for months.”

Ella simply gives her a look; one Olivia has seen her wear often throughout her teens, something that her own daughter had been very prone to these past few years. The thought hurts, and Olivia simply chooses to stay silent. Her niece’s attention shifts to Etta’s bed and she watches as Ella sinks into the mattress next to her unconscious form, eyes running uneasily over the machines she was hooked to, her expression paling as she swallows.

For a couple of seconds the only sound in the room is the soft beep emanating from the ECG.

“What happened?”  Ella’s voice is soft this time, as she finds Etta’s limp hand, squeezing softly.

Olivia clears her throat. “We’re working on that.”

“I saw her two days ago. She was  _fine._ ” There’s a stark disbelief in her voice, and she looks at her then with angry, baffled eyes, demanding to know what went wrong.

Olivia shakes her head, not knowing what to say, her head still awash from the images of her dream.

It occurs to her then.

She might know after all, what she could do. 


	9. Chapter 9

Olivia holds the necklace in between her fingers, the weight of the cross heavy in her palm.

It’s not the only thing that weights on her.

She remember giving it to Ella as a keepsake before she embarked on a mission she wasn't sure she was returning from.  A rare moment of sentiment for her, now lost along with all the others, replaced by events of which she has no real memory, only those which she has pieced together from conversations and photographs.

It’s been 17 years but she still hasn't caught up, still just pretending at times to recognize the references, playing along and nodding at the right moments, wondering  what would have happened if she’d chosen the other path, where it would  have led her – a life without Peter, without Etta in exchange for keeping her memories, knowing it’s not a trade-off she would have cared to make, regardless of consequences.

She holds Etta’s head up gently, slipping the cross onto her neck, unable to ignore the startling limpness, the coldness of her skin, trying to give her some of her warmth, the cool metal of the cross between their skins.

_“It’ll keep you safe.”_  Her mom had told her, pulling it out of her own neck and pressing it into her hands. She’d been sick, tired…almost certainly dying.

Olivia had taken it wordlessly, not having the heart to tell her mother that it could do no such thing. At fourteen, she had lost faith, never having had much of it to begin with, had seen her mother being brutalized, the talisman around her neck simply bearing witness to the crimes.

It couldn't keep her safe, any more than it had kept her mother safe she had thought to herself, tucked it away in a box and hid it in her sock drawer, never worn, where she didn’t need to see it and be constantly reminded of that failure of her faith.

The years have made that anger go away.

She’d wanted to pass it on to Etta someday, a keepsake, a signifier of an assurance that she had hoped to keep much better than her mother ever could, to keep her daughter safe, to protect her.

In a macabre way, the tradition now seems fitting, she thinks darkly. A broken promise handed down three generations.  It may rest on Etta’s neck now, but it was her cross to bear.

Guilt was the real family heirloom she had received.

She shrugs away the thought, running a hand through Etta’s hair, feeling the softness of the blond locks between her fingers, remembering them when they were less malleable. At three, waves of unruly tresses, a riot of chestnut and deep gold, tamed over the years, lighter and straighter now.  Olivia inhales deeply, trying to breathe in the scent of her shampoo, the faint traces of which still linger after three days in the hospital.  Tea tree and other herbs, a hint of the rain-forest. She’s not familiar with the product, she realizes, her daughter having long ago transitioned the days of the kids shampoos that Olivia would buy for her. Back when she still depended on her for things like that and her approval factored into all Etta’s choices.

Innocuous at the thought is, it only reminds her of how much she didn't know about her child anymore. Somewhere in the past few years, she had grown up, become her own person, someone capable of making her own choices, choosing her own shampoo… keeping her own secrets.

Secrets that had deadly consequences as she had found out.

“Hey baby girl.” She whispers, placing a hand over her forehead, feeling an urge to say something, anything that wasn't the deafening white noise of her own toxic thoughts.

“I know you can hear me. Walter had all kinds of theories about things like this…but I know you’ll listen to me, even if you won’t say anything.”

The silence that she knows to expect by now still throws her off and she pauses for a second, trying to hold herself together.

“I hope you know how much everyone misses you.”  She says, trying to keep her voice casual. “You've got enough get-well messages and cards here to start your own greeting card company and all your friends keep calling me every other day. I never realized how popular you were until now. Definitely your father’s daughter I see.” Olivia chuckles in-spite of everything.

 “Your friend Adam bought you some flowers yesterday by the way, they’re really beautiful.” She continues, her eyes drifting towards the bunch she had placed on the nightstand. “He’s a sweet kid and he seemed to so upset to hear abut you. I think he really likes you, you know.” She smiles feebly, a flash of a different lifetime occurring to her in that moment.

Peter had bought her flowers too. The second time she’d crossed over…white tulips, sitting by her nightstand without explanation.  The nurse had told her her boyfriend had left them for her while she was sleeping.

_“He’s not my boyfriend.”_  She had felt compelled to tell her even while unable to stop the silly smile pull at her lips as she caught sight of the flowers.

The other woman had given her a somewhat amused, knowing look.

_“Well he should be then.”_

Save that time he was waiting for her while she came to consciousness, he never visited her in those three day she was there.  It was guilt, she knows now. Guilt that made him stay away, guilt she had heard in that strained voice of his when he’d called her that day when she got home.

Guilt that was keeping him away right now.

It was becoming depressingly easy to break his codes.  A strange sense of déjà vu. Like they've been here before, at this place, grappling with a loss far more devastating, unable to talk to each other.

The pain feels all too familiar, even if she can’t understand why.

“Your dad doesn't come around much. He’s working really hard to   find a way to help you. That’s what he tells me at least.” She shrugs.  “But the thing is, he just can’t bear to see you like this. He thinks he’s hiding it so well, but I can see what it’s doing to him.”

She pauses then, sighing deeply. “ Sweetheart….you don’t know what you mean to him. Since the day you were born, you’ve been his entire world. If something happened to you, it would destroy him. To be honest…I am not sure it’s not already.  I am really scared…for you, for him, for us… so please just do me a solid and come back to us.”

It’s a futile plea, but Olivia literally holds her breath in that moment, almost like something would happen just then. That Etta would open her eyes and it would all stop hurting so much. She laughs brokenly, not knowing what moviesque miracle she was hoping for exactly.

“Well can’t blame  me for trying can you?” She shrugs.

 

* * *

 

 “Hey. I thought you’d want a change of clothes.” Peter walks in after a while. He sets the bag by the side of her chair, bending then to kiss her on the forehead.

 “How’re you doing?”  He says softly, leaning into the kiss for a moment. 

“I am okay.” She nods, leaning into the kiss, the warmth of his lips assuring. “Just a little tired.”

“You should come home and get some rest.”

“Maybe later.”  She shrugs, observing the way his eyes move to Etta in all too brief glance, the way his expression turns into one of clear disapproval when he catches the cross lying across her chest.

“You should take that thing off.” He says, straightening up, voice bordering on curt. “It’s a choking hazard.”

Olivia simply nods noncommittally. She knows it’s not personal, the anger. Not at her anyway.  

“Did the doctor say anything?”

“The injuries are healing so that’s some good news.” She lets out a little shudder. “But, they still don’t know anything else.”

He nods, looking entirely unimpressed.  “Well that’s wildly helpful.  I am gonna head back if that’s all there is.”

“Peter…” She shakes her head, meeting his eyes then, trying to see past the guarded expression he was wearing, where the echo of very real pain lurked somewhere.  “I don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“Whether you’re trying to punish her or yourself?”

“Olivia please let’s not…”

 “You won’t even look at her.” She cuts him off. “Why are you being like this?”

“I am just trying to stay focused…I don’t really need to be…”

“You promised me you wouldn't shut me off.” She urges, looking at him with frustration.  “You know it does us no good.”

“What do you want me to say?” He puts up his hands in the air,  gives her a scornful look.  “Do you want us to sit down and talk about our feelings right now?”

“I just want to know what’s going on with you." She says softly, sighing in fatigue as her hand coming up to pinch the bridge of her nose. " You shouldn't be keeping..."

“Liv…” His voice has turned steely, signaling finality.  “Nothing is going on with me. Please drop it.”

 She nods, her expression more than disappointed as she looks fine.   “ Fine. Whatever. If you  don't want to talk, I have to something to say” She takes his hand. “And just hear me out on this.”

 He nods imperceptibly and she takes it as a sign to continue.

“You remember the procedure that Walter did all those years ago… with John...I was thinking maybe...”

“Forget it.” He withdraws his hand tersely, shaking his head even before she can finish her sentence. “We’re not doing that.”

The thought has already occurred to him, she’s positive. She’d be surprised if with his intellect he would have failed to consider that solution.

“Peter, come on. It can work.  Etta was trying to tell us something before she collapsed. If I can just know what it is, we can find a way to bring her out of this. And you know what needs to be done. Astrid can help.”

“No. It’s too dangerous. We’ll find another way.”

“ But we already know this can work.”

“Olivia, I am not my father. I am not going to shoot you up with LSD and stick you into a tank with electrodes rammed into your spine just because you ask me to.  Please drop it.”

“Peter, what choice do we have? If something happens to her…”

“And if something happens to you?” He asks, not missing a beat. “The last time you did this, you almost lost your sanity. Do I really need to have this argument with you after all these years Olivia?”

“It worked didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it worked.   Congratulations. You risked brain damage and going clinically insane for the sake of a man who lied to you and deceived you all the while he slept with you and kept you his dirty little secret. Big victory there.”

She flinches as if he had slapped her and Peter immediately regrets his words. Wishes he could take them back that instant.  Any other time, she would have probably smacked him…hard. But he had delivered a low blow, when she was already so vulnerable and maybe it’s been 23 years, but it’s still too soon.  It’ll never not be too soon. He’s hurt her, in the worst way possible, something he had spent a lifetime and more trying to avoid. The world had done enough of that to her, his contribution notwithstanding and could the earth just open up and swallow him whole now?

He begins to apologize, but she shakes her head, cutting him off.

“Be that as may.” She says then flatly, reaching for Etta’s hand, not looking at him. “This is not about John. This is about our daughter and if there is even a shot that this will help her, then I don’t care about anything else.”

“Olivia…”

 “There is nobody in the world I trust more than you to perform the procedure.”  She says facing him then, her expression non-negotiable in every sense of the word.

“But I am going to do this with or without you.”

He doesn’t say anything, his eyes shuttered, the set of his jawline so tight, she would have cut herself on it. He shoves his hands into his pockets, giving her a nod then.     

“Who am I kidding right? I am just that stranger whose job is to hook you up with electrodes and babysit you through your drug induced quests.” He chuckles darkly, turning around to leave.

 

“ It’s good to know that after all these years, I still don’t get a say in anything that concerns your life.”

 

* * *

 

 

Peter walks the streets that evening, aimlessly, the lab out of question, unable to go back to an empty house, unable to stay in that hospital and be with his family.

Not that he didn't know where he was exactly going even if wasn't keeping track.  The streets were known to him like the back of his hand. There was something about Cambridge which never changed. You could count on things to be in their place.

Strictly he knows it’s anything but true.  Everything changed, given time.  And yet, this place always feels frozen to him. It isn’t the obvious antiquity of the place or its historic significance.  No. Something much simpler.

It was home, the only home he’d ever known.

He doesn’t remember the illness, doesn’t remember quite a bit after it actually (Walter was right about a little memory loss being kind to the soul).  But after that there was that all too brief period he’d been like any other boy and he’d been happy, before his family had begun to fall apart, before Walter’s arrest. As much as he could have been, he’d been happy. The old house he’d shared with his father had only renewed his affections for the place. 

It doesn’t surprise him he had chosen to return here when he’d sought to make a home for his new family. It also suited him, uncanny as it was. Being amongst academics, the quaint college town life.  The intellectual in him liked it, thrived in it to be accurate.  

 Olivia, ever the military brat, bore little attachment to places, content to follow his lead as long as they kept out of her no-go list of suburbs. No. It was the house that had done her in. She’d fallen in love with it.  He’d never seen her so enamored with anything material quite as much she’d been taken in with the house.

_“I think she’ll love it here.”_

_“She?”_

_“The baby of course.”_

_“How’d you know it’s going to be a girl?”_

She’d looked at him as if he were so very naïve then for questioning her and given him a wordless smile.  Said no more than that and then went away to look at the backyard.

And Peter had believed her.

Truth be told he’d wanted it to be a girl, desperately,  the other possibility had always frightened him in a way that he knew no one could ever understand.

It was so easy to love his daughter, long before she was born, long before she was tangible. It was easy to love the idea of a daughter, to dream about her, dream for her.

A son would have complicated everything so much, not that he would have loved him any less, but still… he could never convince himself it would have been the same.

How ridiculously happy they’d been those early years, he thinks now. Like somebody had hit them up with massive doses from Walter’s fun stash.  Not that they had been any less happy over the years, but the newness of it all… it was intoxicating in the beginning, the lure of normal, the extraordinary realization that it was here to stay. Simply waking up in the same bed every morning to Olivia next to him was enough to leave him smiling like an idiot for hours.

And Etta… Etta was born and it was like someone had rocket propelled him into the Northern Lights.  It was something else, that feeling. Nothing in the world had seemed wrong with her in it. The dangers still existed of course, the horrors they face on an everyday basis, the demons they battled.

But it was different now. It no longer  _was_  their life, just a part of it. A part which he could leave behind at the threshold of home and not bother to look back.

Maybe that was the problem. Too much contentment. He’d become complacent, let his guard down, forgotten…

How wrong everything could go in a split second...

Why wouldn't Olivia see that? Why wouldn't she understand?

  _You want to know what’s going on with me, Liv._  He thinks to himself, wishing he could have told her earlier.

_I am so angry; I am surprised I haven’t burst an actual blood vessel by now. I am angry at myself that I led our daughter into danger knowing fully well what that machine was capable of doing, what it could do to her. I am angry that I couldn’t stop it from tainting our lives all over again.  And I am so mad at Etta right now; I can’t even stand to be in the same room as her. She lied to us, she deceived us and broke our trust and she actively kept a secret from us, one that was endangering her life. And what really makes me mad, what scares me to death is that I may never to get to yell at her for all the grief she’s caused us because she may never wake up. That she could slip away from us and we won’t even know why. I am so terrified of losing her that I can’t even think about not being angry. Because if I stopped feeling mad, I’ll fall apart. And know you won’t me to help you do something that will almost certainly kill you..._

“Bishop… just the man I’d like to see.  Fancy a game?” A voice breaks him out his mental tirade.  He notes the elderly man sitting outside a café, a chess board laid out invitingly on his table, just waiting no doubt for a sparring opponent.  An English professor of international repute, they’d known each other for years now.

“Not today Arthur.”   He tells the old man, giving him a nod of acknowledgement. He quickens his gait, moving away from the man before he’s ensnared into making small talk, something he simply has no heart for today.  He looks down, trying to avoid eye contact.  It was hard to not bump into people downtown.  Too many familiar faces, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and students of his from the seminars he taught from time to time.

“Peter. Oh my god.” A worried looking woman spots him anyway, enveloping him immediately in a much too tight hug. “How have you been?”

“Not too good as you probably know” He gives her a slight smile disengaging from the embrace as he pats the woman awkwardly, unable to stop the roll of his eyes at the way she asks him that.  It was pointless to pretend with her, she was a parent of one of Etta’s friends and Etta’s friends knew because the school had to be informed.

“Of course… oh poor thing.” She sighs. “When Nigel told me I was so shocked.  I can’t even imagine what you and Olivia must be going through. How’s Etta? ”

“Same as we last heard.” He says with a straight face, fist tight in his jacket pocket, trying not to scream at her to get out of his way right then.  “The doctors are doing more tests.”

“You let us know if there’s anything we can do.   _Anything_.” She says empathetically.

“Thank you. You’re very kind.” He politely but firmly lets go of the hand she was clutching, moving away before she said anything else.

He turns a corner, entering the second hand bookstore he often frequented, knowing there was no one there who would bother him with these shows of sympathy.  He knew people simply couldn’t help themselves, but it got on his nerves, these communal suburb ways. The overly considerate phone calls, the casseroles of food people kept bringing them, the pointless offers of assistance… like any of that actually helped.  Nodding a quick hello to the store owner on the phone, a long standing friend now, he makes a beeline for the back shelves knowing he could be alone for a little while. He fingers the stacks listlessly, mind really not on perusal, pulling out a well-worn copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

“Peter…. good to see you.  I was just about to call you myself.” He hears from the front.

“And why is that Donny?” He asks thumbing through the pages of the book idly, remembering his earlier readings of the bard, a particular line standing out in his memory. 

_Thou are thy mother’s glass and she in thee…_   It was from Sonnet three, not one of his personal favorites.

“Got that copy of Plague you’d asked me to look into.”  The owner’s voice filters in, snapping him out of his thoughts. “First edition, hardback, signed by author, just like you wanted. Got this baby all the way from some guy in Virginia, collector’s item. It’s a beauty.”

“It’s quite a find.” He comments, taking the book as reverently as the other man hands it to him, hands running gently over the leather binding, taking in the comforting, musty smell of old paper

“It what I do.” The other man chuckles. “Surprised you haven’t read it already that’s all.”

“I have.” He nods.  “This is for Etta. It’s supposed to be a going away present for the summer. She got into this very selective pre-college STEM camp at Stanford. ”

“Wow that’s pretty impressive. You must be very proud of her.”

“Yeah… she’s something alright.” He mutters unable to fake a smile, trying not to cringe at the way he feels at the other man’s words. There was never a time in his life when the attribution would have been anything but true.  

Except today…it just feels hollow.

“How much do you want for it?” He asks then, knowing he ought to show more enthusiasm over a find he’d personally requested.  Donny didn’t do those for just anybody. He had a unique talent for locating and finding rare items, a talent not strictly restricted to books and his services usually came with a hefty charge.

“Well tell you what; since it’s for Etta, you can just pay me what I paid the owner for it and we’ll forget the commission.”

“That’s generous.”  He says gratefully, fishing out his wallet to reach for his credit card, hoping his voice conveyed enough gratitude.  “Someone might say you’ve up and gone sentimental Donny.”

“You’ve gotta be. To run a secondhand book shop in this day and age. And I like your girl. She’s got major spunk.” Donny chuckles fondly, handing him the book in a bag.  “I hope she likes your present.”

 “I hope she does too.”  He smiles weakly at the man then.  

_I hope I get to give it to her._

* * *

 

 

She goes home that night after the nurse politely but firmly tells her she couldn’t simply stay the night again. That they would of course take good care of her daughter and that she needn’t worry.      

When she reaches the house, not a single light is turned on, save the one in the study where she knows Peter was probably holed up, impervious to everything else.  The house is conspicuous telling of her daughter’s absence.  The piles of sheet music she often left on the baby grand while working on her music, the little notes she would stick on the fridge to give them messages when they missed each other at home, which happened quite a bit, the ice skates which should have been left in the passage way carelessly after a night at the rink till Olivia had to scold her and tell her to put it away…nothing to say she’s been there in a while.

It’s disconcerting how empty a house could feel without one person. She takes in her surroundings trying to remember when only two days it had been so full of life and laughter. When they’d been sitting down for dinner together at the table, eating. They’d been late coming home so they’d had pizza delivered and Peter had been telling his usual wild stories, this time about his years in Italy working as a farmhand on a vineyard and how the owner had taken him under his wing, taught him to cook Italian food like a pro.

_“And some unearthly beautiful woman fell in love with you of course…”_  Etta had said cheekily, eyes dancing with mischief.

_“Oh she was unearthly alright. An absolute creature.”_  He’d nodded, not even protesting the suggestion, reaching for his beer.  _“But love is a bit of stretch. Let’s just say we had a dalliance of sorts.”_

_“Right. Also code for lots of sex.”_  Etta had rolled her eyes, meeting hers then with some curiosity.  “What made you ever look at him and go, gee, there’s good husband material?”

_“Trust me honey.”_  Olivia had smiled at her.  _“If I’d ever looked at him and thought that, I’d have my head examined.”_

She’d been faking it the whole time, Olivia realizes then, pieces of a picture falling into place as she thinks about it. The emptiness behind the quips, the distant eyes, the almost perfunctory smiles… except it wasn’t some rehearsed attempt at disingenuity because she was bored. It was a desperate charade, trying  _so_ hard to enjoy something that was as idiotically normal as a family dinner.

She doesn’t go looking for Peter. Doesn’t announce her presence, instead warily climbing up to the bedroom, heading for the shower.

The hot water feels glorious on her skin. She increases the flow with the knob, feeling a new found appreciation for their shower panel, the one that she knows Peter had made all kinds of mysterious tweaks to one Saturday, reminding her of all the perks of being married to a mechanical genius.   

She washes away the hours at the hospital with broad sweeps of her hands through her skin and her hair, trying not to think of anything else besides the perfection of the water pressure on her back and the rushing sound in her ears, staying till she gets past the point of pleasantly drowsy to almost falling asleep on her feet.

Toweling her – now red – skin dry, she wanders into the bedroom reaching into the drawer to grab one of Peter’s t –shirts, pulling it over her head, inhaling his indelible scent that refused to go away no matter how many washings it has been through, or the fact that she has nearly worn it as many times as he has, probably more.  When she was pregnant, when she had taken to wearing his shirts to bed, finding them to be more accommodating of her growing bump than her own tank tops and shirts.

Her body had shrunk back to its original size, but the habit had stayed.  Threadbare and faded, the blue shirt hangs on her smaller frame now, running a little past her thighs. She sinks to the bed then with a tired sigh, hugging herself, fisting the excess fabric around her middle, trying to remember a time when she actually owned a proper night suit or some likeness of it, when a majority of her sleep wear didn’t consist of her husband’s hand me downs.  

_There was precisely one negligee in her possession; a gift from Rachel. A frilly wisp of black lace and satin that her sister had convinced her was integral to keeping the romance alive. The first and only time she had   grudgingly worn it to bed was a few weeks after Etta was born and her doctor had cleared her for resuming sexual activity, something that had Peter grinning the whole day, and in a fit of anxiety over her now significantly transformed body, she had chosen the garment._

_“I figured you’d like to see me in something other than your ratty shirts for once.” She had joked,  feeling deeply uncomfortable as she walked over to him, being overcome by an insecurity she wasn’t usually prone to as she felt his eyes on her.  “I probably look silly though. I don’t know what I was thinking.”_

_“Come here.” He had pulled her close, kissing her then, not reaching for the lips but the forehead, gentle, reassuring, chaste even. He’d shaken his head with a genuinely amused smile, his hand reaching up to her shoulder to finger a strap of her negligee. “Sometimes I don’t even know if you realize how beautiful you are.”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Yeah.” He bent down then to place a kiss at the base of her neck. “But you don’t have to ever do anything or wear anything for my benefit okay...not unless you really want to.”_

_“What makes you think I don’t want to dress up in racy nighties to seduce you?” She’d cocked an eyebrow at him, slowly finding the familiar comfort of residing in her own skin as he showered her with kisses, his touch speaking volumes of his desire._

_“Because it’s not you Olivia.” He’d said knowingly, pulling both her straps down with one swift move, sliding the garment along the slope of her breasts. “And you don’t have to worry about seducing me…”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Yeah.” He’d given her a lopsided grin.  “I am really easy.”_

John was easy too… easy to please. The men in her life had never asked all that much of her.  But he had made a veritable virtue of it.  

Maybe it had made it easier to keep secrets from her…

The train of thought seems pointless, a dead-end if there ever was one, but she keeps with,  feeling her eyes close in fatigue but still resisting sleep, anything to keep her mind away from Etta in the hospital.

Five months and eleven days… the sum total of their relationship…if you counted the 48 hours in which she had saved him from the brink of death and then lost him all over again.

Her memories are still intact, every little bit, but the feelings seemed to have faded away into something distant, like scenes from a movie she could still pull up from within the confines of her heart and watch occasionally and feel a bittersweet echo of the past.

Six dinner dates, that one incomplete weekend in Cape Cod and the rest a blur of sleazy motels and furtive coupling.

Is that all they had together?  It seems odd, Olivia thinks, that someone could have been so important to her and the trajectory her life took and yet in the scale of things could have only filled so many seconds of her life, the important among which were so few she could count them on one hand.

She loved him of course. In the same way she had loved him all those years ago, but it was just that, a feeling, no less, no more. She had loved him because he was there and because he was easy to love. Because he didn’t ask for much and because she didn’t have much to give.

But she had loved him all the same.  Even if she had nothing to show for it in the end, except an engagement ring she never wore and a question she had answered only in her dreams.

It occurs to her that in some universe, there was a version of her that had him, without the lies and the secrets, maybe she had him  and it was different-- a different marriage, a different home, raising different kids… in some life they were together and she was probably happy.

But it was someone else’s life and she didn’t want it, any part of it.

She only wanted those five months and eleven days.

The rest of her life belonged to Peter.

“I thought I heard you come in.”

She open her eyes, hearing the faint click of the light switch and sees her husband at the doorway, standing there, considering her with a curious expression.

 “I figured a few hours of rest might help.” She says vaguely, looking up at the ceiling. “You know clear my head…plus the nurse kicked me out.” She shrugs, a tired smile on her face.

“She’s a brave woman.” He gives her an amused if slightly strained grin, the tightness in his build had eased up a little since afternoon. He moves closer to the bed.  “Have you eaten?” He doesn’t wait for her response, the question purely rhetorical.  “Let me bring you something.”

“Don’t go.” She then holds out her hand to him, a wordless invitation to join her and he gives her an understanding almost heartbreaking smile.

Too many years have passed between them to hold grudges anymore on the basis of some heated words.  They’re too old now, too tired, too much in pain to inflict anymore on themselves by trying to stay away from each other.  

He plops next to her on the mattress. Without hesitation she folds over into his embrace, breathing him in, burying her face in the nook of his neck.  It didn’t matter what had happened before, what they had said to each other. None of those things mattered when it came to their need for seeking comfort in each other.

“Hold me, please.” She asks him without reservation.  These things come easier to her now, almost like breathing, demanding affection when she needed it, asking to be taken care of. 

Once again he complies without protest, his embrace warm, inviting, comforting in all the ways that coming home felt like.

“Tighter.” She burrows against him, closing her eyes, like years ago when Etta would fall asleep curled up in against his chest in much the same way, her head buried into his shirt collar so tight that Olivia would be able to smell the lingering traces of her baby shampoo on him hours after she had been put to bed.

He pulls her closer, till there’s no space left between their bodies, pressing a kiss into her hair, his hand reaches to weave through the strands.

“Better?”  He whispers.

“Much…” She whispers back trying not to think of anything but the feel of his arms around her and his hands in her hair. Before he was anything more to her than just a reluctant colleague, just Peter. No… he was never _just_  Peter.

 From the first time he had hugged her close in that hospital in New York when she’d been worried about losing her sanity, this had become her safe place, where nothing could ever get to her. It felt a little like being in the tank, her senses calm, overtaken by a strange warm bliss, an indescribable  peace at her very core, she felt like she was floating but with the knowledge  that there was something solid keeping her tethered, protected.

Walter could have told her, she thinks, some transuniversal explanation for why Peter’s touch affected her so.  The science of nerves and electric impulses and tactile experiences that made her feel the way she did.

Walter could have told her many things. Its uncanny how   after all these years of his absence, he’s still the first person she thinks about when looking for answers.

 “Do you remember the first night we spent here, the day we moved in?” She asks Peter then, wanting, needing… to think about something else, anything else.

To talk, to fill space and time with words.  It didn’t matter what they were, just as long as there was no silence between them.

“I do…” He mumbles into her hair. “It was a Thursday.  We ordered Chinese at 1:00 in the night. You said you didn’t want any dumplings and then you ate all of mine.”

“I was eating for two.”

Wisely, he doesn’t say anything else about that, giving her a tired smile instead. It’s not that he can’t tell what she’s trying to do, the thinly veiled attempt at distraction.

She wonders if there was ever a time when he couldn’t read her so easily.

“I think the only thing that we’d unpacked and set up was the bed.” He plays along anyway. “And the thermostat wouldn’t work properly, so we were really cold even though it was July.”  He brings a hand to rub her arm. “And you were wearing this shirt.”

“I was.” She nods, laughing a little. “You remembered?”

“Well I may not have photographic memory but people say I am a fairly smart guy.” He shrugs.

“Who are those people again?”

“I don’t know…Harvard, MIT? Anyone of those places that gave me graduate degrees in advanced sciences…the real ones that is.” He clarifies when she raises a questioning eyebrow at her.

“Have any of them seen you at the mercy of a three year old’s jungle gym assembly manual?”

“That thing had parts missing.”  He retorts, as she gives him a teasing grin. It lasts only a second though.  They remember all too soon…the train of thought that ends with Etta in the hospital.

Olivia looks away for a second before pressing a kiss to his chest.  “Anyway… about our first night, do you remember how I was a weepy emotional mess the whole time?”

“Your words not mine.” He says, choosing his expression carefully, though the small smile at the corner of his lips gives him away.

“It was the hormones.” She gives him a warning look. “I kept crying that day for no reason and you didn’t know what was going on with me, so you just held me and spent the whole night telling me about how our life was going to be in the house.”

 He chuckles, vestiges of a faint twinkle still in his eyes.  “I was trying to get you to stop crying. I don’t even remember half of what I was saying.”

“I do, all of it.”

“What did I say?” He mutters.

 “It was a list of all the things we were going to do as a family when the baby was here.”

“There was a list?”

She nods.  “It was a very detailed list. You were going to teach her everything from hockey to night fishing to Poker.”

“Well I did teach her all those things.” He nods. “And I taught her how to fix cars.”

“You taught her how to hot wire them.”

“Same thing.” He shrugs, giving her a genuine smile for the first time in three days. Its infectious, the glimmer of happiness and she can’t help the tingle of joy pushing against her chest, one that turns into a throbbing ache almost as soon as she lets herself feel it. She closes her eyes, letting out a little sigh.

“That night… as you were talking, it was the first time I really believed it was going to be okay.”

“What was going to be okay?”

“Us. You and I trying to be a family. It was the first time, I really believed we would be able to make it happen.”  She looks up at the ceiling then not wanting to meet his eyes, bracing herself for what she was about to tell him.  “I never told you this. But I thought about it….about giving her up.”

There is a predictable lack of response from him. He simply stares at the ceiling with her, choosing to not say anything though the set of his jawline tightens. She finds his hand then, holding it, the pads of her fingers brushing his palm, her hold demanding but loose enough for him to pull out of.

He doesn’t.

“I thought about it a lot…all those months. Thought about doing it.” She presses on.  “I was so scared about something like this happening to her. Something because of us and all the dangers that follow us. I thought to myself if I gave her up, if I could do the right thing, she would grow up in a normal family you know, with parents who came home every night and would be able to give her all the time and attention she needed… keep her safe. I thought she would have the best chance at life as long as it wasn’t with us.” 

He stares at her for a couple of seconds, hard, trying very hard no doubt to understand something he obviously didn’t grasp, a thought that had never even entered the realm of possible once as far as he was concerned.

“Why didn’t you then?” He asks her then, his voice echoing something that felt like betrayal.

“Because I knew I could never do that to you.” She reaches for his face, running a hand through the ever present scruff, more abundant now due to three days of negligence. “You loved her so much. Even before she was born, she was real to you.”  She kisses him on the forehead gently, her lips finding the crease at the middle. “You never let anything scare you from thinking about our life together, about our child. I had to wait to hold her in my arms for the first time to know what it felt like to be a mother. But you were a father long before that moment.”  

She sighs then, “and the truth is, I was never strong enough to actually consider it seriously.  I just couldn’t stand the thought of not having her in our lives. Now I keep thinking if I wasn’t too selfish.”

 “Selfish?”

“We brought this child into this world knowing exactly what our lives were like, knowing how dangerous things were… after everything that happened to us, after all the awful things… we still decided we wanted a family. And look what happened?”  Her voice tapers off.

“Olivia don’t.”  He shakes his head, looking at her with that look,  that disappointed frustrated frown that he always wore when she doubted herself.   “Don’t do this to yourself.  Not now.  We spent seventeen years building this life for our daughter, one that she is happy in…on the days that she’s not being a teenage brat and telling us how much she hates it that is anyway.  That’s not nothing.  Don’t make it seem like it all of that means nothing.”

“It’s not.” She nods.  “It’s what matters the most to me in the world. More than anything else I’ve ever cared about in my life. That means protecting our family, at any cost. Don’t you see that?”

She reaches for his hand again. He doesn’t pull back but he doesn’t do much else. So she holds on, sandwiching it between her palms and bringing it to her cheek.

“If anybody gets a say in my life, it’s you. I thought you would know not to question that by now.”

“I thought so too…”

“If you were in my place…you wouldn’t even bother checking with me.” She looks into his eyes then. “You’d just go ahead and do it if it meant there was even a shot of it working. You wouldn’t care about anything else if it could help Etta.”

“Olivia…”

“The only reason you’re not in a tank right now with electrodes in your spine is because there’s no one who can administer the process except you.” She cuts him off, meeting his eyes squarely.

To his credit he doesn’t protest.

 “I don’t want to lose her Peter… please.”

“We won’t. I promise.” He shakes his head, unwilling to let her finish that thought. It hurt too much.  “Let me find a way please… something that doesn’t involve putting you in so much danger. Olivia listen to me. This is not a good idea. The risks are very real. You’re older now, by a lot. Your body is not as resilient to that kind of invasive procedure as it used to be. We don’t know how it will respond to the drugs, the procedure…for all we know it could kill you within seconds. “

“It’s a chance we’ll have to take.”

“No we don’t. I can find a way…please. And Etta’s not in any immediate danger from what we can tell.”

“And what if that changes?” She asks him. “We don’t know what’s doing this to her, we don’t know when it can get worse, by how much… Peter we don’t know anything. It’s been 3 days already. That’s three days of her life she’s never going to get back. I am not prepared to sit by and watch her slip into some limbo… not if there’s a way I can fix it.”

“And if I lost you too?”  His voice is harsh. “What then?”

“You won’t.” She protests, knowing his fear was entirely real.  “I trust you. I always have. You won’t let anything happen to me.”

“Like I didn’t let anything happen to Etta?” He laughs mirthlessly.

“This is our only chance...”

She looks at him then, and he is struck by the familiarity of that gaze.  That gaze that was so much like Etta. The way she would look to him and make him feel like he could do anything because he had her absolute trust, all of her faith.  His hand travels to her cheek, tracing the familiar structure, the delicate features that his daughter had inherited.

 “ _Thou are thy mother’s glass and she in thee_ …” he murmurs.

“What?”  She looks at him with a puzzled expression.

 “ Its Shakespeare…” He shakes his head sadly, nodding in defeat.   “Fine…we’ll do it.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Just like old times yeah?” 

Olivia registers the acerbic tone in his voice, the way he says it without any actual inclination of nostalgia.

Not that she’s expecting the sentiment.

After all its not really a moment either of them cares to revisit –  her standing in front of him in her bathrobe, waiting to be prepped to step into the tank and play  yet another round of Russian Roulette with her sanity.

No, definitely not a moment for the  old family album.

Some things _have_ changed, she notes to herself.   They’re not in the old lab this time, but in  a facility of Massive Dynamic,  one of those off the books set-ups,  a blinding white sterile lab with all kinds of thingummies that Nina had commandeered for them ( _“If you’re determined to do this, I am making sure you do it with the best resources at your hand.”_  Olivia remembers her saying  futilely after trying to talk her out of the plan.)

It even came with its own sensory deprivation tank, a new-age spa like contraption that seems  safer and far more conducive to a dangerous drug induced quest than Walter’s old rust bucket. 

And yet, she doesn’t feel any more confident of her chances at succeeding than before. If anything  the odds seem impossibly against her.  All the arguments Peter had presented to her to consider against doing this, the ones she had so easily thrown out of hand two days ago, overwhelm her now in their soundness.

Olivia steals a look at her daughter, lying on the stretcher close by,  still unconscious, lost to the world around her, already hooked up to the apparatus.  There’s an eerie silence punctuated only by the steady beeps emanating from the heart monitor.  

 She reminds herself just what’s at stake and forcibly pushes the anxiety away, meeting Peter’s eyes as she takes off the robe, feeling an intense sense of déjà vu in that moment, standing before him in her black bra and panties as he frowns  with the same mixture of disapproval and concern that he’d worn over twenty years ago.  

 “Absolutely, why don’t we do this more often?”  She jokes then,  when she really knows better.

He refuses to look up, continuing his movements, briskly, almost clinically.  “Maybe because cooking smack in a black lab and running dangerous experiments on human beings is wildly illegal. I don’t know. You’re the cop, you tell me?” He retorts as he begins to attach the probes on her chest.

She balks at the way he says it. It’s not the standard sardonicism she knows  and has come to expect from him. This is different, the tone abjectly devoid of any actual humor.

“ But at least  you get to see me half naked and high as a kite.” She says desperately, needing to inject some levity in the situation.

“ I must have terrible game. If running illegal scientific procedures  is what it takes for me to get a woman to take her clothes off.” He responds darkly. 

 “Peter…” Olivia sighs.  “Please, don’t be like this.”

His already tense jawline tightens further and he shrugs.

 “What do you want from me Liv?  I am doing this with you aren’t I? Even if every cell in my body tells me this is a really bad idea. Even when my instincts are screaming at me to stop you from this madness. I am still here.” He shakes his head, a tired long drawn out breath escaping him.

  “Just don’t expect me to be the loving, supportive husband while I am getting you strapped up for something that can very likely kill you.”

He looks at her finally, eyes grim, anger write large all over his face, beneath which lurks a very raw, heart breaking pain.

“Even _I am_ not that good a conman.”

It’s a uniquely devastating feeling to be hurt by someone you love, to  feel  betrayed by their actions.  Olivia knows it all too well, having been on the receiving end of it more times than she can count. To be the one to inflict it  is a new feeling, an uncomfortable one at that she realizes. 

She halts his movements by taking his hands in hers, squeezing them softly before moving to hug him, unmindful of the wires hanging from her body.  She knows what it’s costing him to hold her hand through this. The very real consequences of what she is about to embark on are no secret to her.

“I know.” She whispers,  pressing her ear against his chest, the sound of his steady heartbeat reassuring.  “I know what I am putting you through and I wish there was some other way.  And I know I am asking a lot here, but if I don’t come back from this, I don’t want us to leave things between us like this.”

“Don’t say that.” He cuts her off, pulling her tighter into his embrace. 

“Peter…”

“I said no.” He says firmly, pulling away a little to look her in the eye. “I am not going to let you stand here and say goodbye to me. That’s not how this works out.”

“ Yeah?” She says softly. “How does it work out then?”

 “We get a happy ending.”  He says in a far from convincing tone, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.  “And we get our daughter back; happy and healthy like she was before. And then maybe,  we can stop on our way back home for some milkshakes.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Olivia nods giving him a smile, stepping away from him before the laughable façade crumbles.  She steals another glance at Etta, aware of the way his watchful eyes follow her. 

“You’ll make sure she’s okay, no matter what?” She whispers, unable to help the lump that sticks in her throat when she is reminded again that this may be the last time she’d get to see her daughter. “You’ll take care of her for me, won’t you?”

“Liv you’re doing it again.” He says sternly though the tone of his voice is anything but.  He shakes his head at her reproachfully, a small wry smile that coaxes one from her despite it all.

Olivia nods.

“Let’s get started.”

They don’t say much to each other after that. Nothing that they didn’t know already.   Nothing that would make any of it easier. Nothing that would make the cold fear in the pit of her stomach go away.

 _I don’t want to die._ For the first time in ever, the thought occurs to her as the first hit of psychedelics is injected  into her blood stream.   It’s a desperate kind of terror  that grips her. The thought of drifting away from her life and never coming back.

She’d never have given it a second thought twenty years ago.

She’d never had so much to live for back then, she realizes.  her thoughts already softening  as the drugs start working.  She allows Peter to help her into the tank, faintly registering the I love you he whispers to her.

 _Tell her I love her… that I love you both,  and that I am so so sorry…_ she thinks to herself as she closes her eyes, letting the water envelop her.

She counts the seconds to calm herself down, her natural instinct trying to fight the lull of the drug. But the effect of the medication is inevitable and soon her world turns to black.

 

* * *

 

* * *

 

 

He’s being a world class jerk.

He _knows._ Knows that his inner sullen teenager has chosen the worst time to make an appearance.  Being an insufferable bastard to the woman he loves while she was staring in the face of almost certain death is a new low… even for him.

But Peter can’t help it. The hapless sense of rage seething in him won’t let him cope with what was happening in any other way.

 _It should be you._  He can hear his voice saying, screaming at him. He should be the one climbing into that god forsaken tank.  Not her.  

This was all his fault and like always  Olivia gets to pay for his mistakes.

He sees  her bent over the stretcher,  wrapped up in that giant fluffy hotel robe that makes  her  appear smaller than she was.  Her hand gently strokes Etta’s forehead, as she looks  upon  her with an almost reverent expression in her eyes, as if wanting to say something to her.   He sees the way her fingers move through the locks of blond hair, as  Olivia leans over to place a kiss on her forehead. Her lips  linger for a second and he doesn’t miss the crushed sigh that escapes her, eyes shuttered tight, no doubt trying to stop yet another bout of tears that would remain unshed.  

He knows he shouldn’t intrude on the moment.  There are few things  Olivia cared for less than having someone be witness to her moments of vulnerability, to have anyone know that she was in fact human. But sick that he is , he can’t stop himself from prying.

 _Look at what you’ve let happen._  The voice in his head jeers.

_This is how much you’ve failed them._

 She looks at him then, approaching him, a warm yet hesitant smile on her face.

“ You ready for this?” She asks as she stands in front of, her hands coming to clasp the loose knot of her robe.

He thinks about all the things he could say to her,  comforting things, things he should tell her given that he was her _goddamn_ husband . The very real option of  breaking down  and begging her not to do this, pride be damned,  presents itself enticingly.

Instead, he simply smirks

“Just like old times yeah?” 

 

* * *

 

_“Etta…”_

 It’s like someone tugging at her stomach. The sensation strange, restless.

_“ Etta..”_

She’s not the one calling out.  It’s Peter, his voice faint, faraway as she walks through a seemingly endless corridor of white.  Somewhere there’s a secondary voice, also his, talking to her, asking her to concentrate on him, asking her to respond. But she ignores it till it fades away.    She follows the sound of the first  voice as it becomes louder, almost more real,  the white around her morphing into a surrounding  she recognizes instantly --  her daughter’s room, back when it was still a little girl’s nursery.

 _“Etta sweetheart.”_ She sees a much younger Peter kneeling on the floor, peering below the bed. _“You think you can come out from under there so I can talk to you?”_

 _“No… Go away daddy.”_   A watery voice answers back followed by a sniffle.    _“I am staying here forever.”_

Its startling, the sound of her little girl’s voice,  pleasant and yet jarring.  A moment that belonged in the past,  a sound that should have stayed there.

 _“Forever is a long time you know.”_ She hears him chuckle. _“You’re going to miss dinner.”_

 _“I don’t want any.”_ Comes the petulant reply.

 _“Not even dessert. I got cupcakes...with frosting._ ” He adds after a meaningful pause.

_“I don’t want them daddy. I don’t want anything. Mommy yelled at me. She’s mean.”_

She almost laughs at the insistence in the child’s voice, feeling the overwhelming urge to reach out and touch, to call out to her daughter and apologize for being mean, for yelling, for ever have done anything that had scared her away.

“ You remember this don’t you?” A  voice speaks up from behind her. Olivia turns around to find a young woman standing at the doorway, watching her with faint amusement. 

“ It was the day  I was playing dress up  in your closet and I found the box in which you kept your gun in.” She smirks, following Olivia’s gaze to the scene in front of her where Peter was  trying to placate the younger version of her daughter which dissolves away in the next instant . “ The box was locked of course , but you were still so upset that I took it out.  That was the only time you ever raised your voice at me.”

She stares at the apparition, looking at her quietly, obtuse to her scrutiny it would seem. It was Etta, older, dressed in a green leather jacket and jeans, combat boots , her hair much shorter.

But it couldn’t be… there was nothing about her which seemed remotely familiar. Every detail ill fitting , like something out of place.

 “ You’re not her. “ She shakes her head insistently, wanting to look away, but unable to.

“I am imagining this.”

There’s a faint snort at that, her tone now derisive. “ Technically, you’re imagining all of this. “That doesn’t make it not real does it?” The woman says looking at her with a knowing expression. “What’s the matter Mom? Aren’t you happy to see me? Isn’t that why you’re here?”

She flinches at the term.  Its sounds wrong coming from _this_  person.

“ Don’t call me that.”  Olivia says tersely. “ You’re not my daughter.”

“ What makes you so sure?” She gives her a challenging look.

 “ For one, she would _never_ wear those shoes.” She throws a look towards the dusty,  well-worn,  badly scuffed combat boots.    She almost smiles, thinking how strange it was to pick up that minor detail.   

“ I know her.”

The girl simply shrugs.  “ You don’t know _me_.”  

“ You’re _not_ Etta.”

“ Oh but I am.”  The woman nods, a soft, pained expression following after. “ Just not the one you know… or love. But it’s me.  And you know that.”  She then reaches into her shirt, pulling out the chain  that was tucked beneath her clothing.

 “ Where’d you…?” Olivia gaps, looking at the necklace in her hands, recognizing the object that was strung through the chain.

“ The bullet that saved the world…” She smiles, holding up the dented bullet for her to see.  “Isn’t that what dad calls it? You never did tell me why.”

“ I never told you about that. I never showed that _thing_ to you.”  Olivia shouts, trying to stop the spinning sensation in her head.  

“Who  the hell are you?”

“ You know who I am.” She smiles. “ You’ve always know about me. You remember… though you’ve tried very hard not to. You remember don’t you? All that never was. You’ll never save her if you don’t.”

“ Stop it.” Olivia shouts futilely, feeling the utter hopelessness that comes with feeling oneself unravel at the core. Like something was being forcefully  exorcised out of her, something she did not want to unleash.

 “She’s slipping away, your Etta. You’re going to lose her forever if you don’t try and remember. ”

“ Remember what? What are you talking about? Where is she?”

“ She’s scared,  hiding away in her own mind, confused about what’s happening to her. You know what that feels like, don’t you? You know what it’s like to  be scared of your own potential, knowing you’re dangerous, you’re familiar with that feeling. The more you run from that feeling, the more it overwhelms you.”

 Olivia shakes her head. “ I don’t have time for this. I need to save my daughter. I have a find a way to help her. ”

“ That’s what I am trying to help you do.”  The woman nods calmly. “ But you have to stop fighting me.”

She turns  abruptly and begins to walk away then,  the nursery dissolving to white.

Olivia stands for a brief second before she  starts following her. She didn't know why but she knew she had to go after her. 

For a long time, they simply keep walking in silence. 

 “ So what, you’re another Henrietta, from another timeline, from another universe?” Olivia asks finally, feeling the need to burst out in hysterical laughter. “Is that what this is?”

_Not fucking again…_

The woman simply continues to walk without turning at her.   “ Well it wouldn’t be the craziest thing to have happened now would it? You all of people should be more receptive to the idea Olivia.”

“ Oh what…no mom?” Olivia asks unable to stop the quip.

“ You seemed uncomfortable with it.” She turns  to look at her before offering a half shrug. They walk on in the endless nothingness of white, Olivia following her  without really knowing how to explain the compulsion.

“ But  to answer your question. I am just  an amalgamation of  memories, emotions… yours, mine…Etta’s.  A projection at that, something your consciousness can make sense of.  Think of me as your tour guide, someone to help you wade through all this grey matter if  that makes it any easier.  I am just here to show you around. ”

Olivia shakes her head. 

_I am going crazy._

“ Well  maybe I can get  somebody else to show me around then.”

The girl simply laughs.  “ It’s your mind trip Agent Dunham. You can turn me into a giant pink bunny if  that’s your wish.” She gives her an oddly pitying look.  “But  don’t you get it? You _want_ to see me.”

“ _You’re_   not who I wanted to see.” She says in a taut voice.

 The girl doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. “ You’re hostile. Doesn’t surprise me. _Your_ Etta  hasn’t been very welcoming of my presence either. She  doesn’t like this side of her at all. It scares her. To think she could have turned out to be someone like me if things were different. That’s what has had her spinning off kilter for days now.  It’s hard for a  sheltered spoilt teenage girl to make sense of where I came from, the decisions I made. ”

 “ Etta’s not…” Olivia immediately makes to protest when she catches the knowing glint in her eyes.  “ She’s not _that_ spoilt.”

“ It’s okay Olivia. It makes sense. You’ve always been so conflicted about your own motherhood and inability to give yourself to raising a child that you think you have something to make up for.  She’s your only child. You never thought this would happen for you, that you’d ever get to have your own family, and then after what happened with William Bell.  Not to mention your own crappy, fucked up childhood. And Peter of course is  just a whole other mess in himself. Daddy issues extraordinaire there.  It’s natural that  you over compensate. You both do.”

 Olivia looks at her incredulously . “ You’re critiquing my parenting now?”

“ Just making an observation that’s all. Don’t tell me you’ve never thought it yourself. You can’t lie to me. I am in your head. I know everything. ”   

She smirks again confidently. In that half charming  but  borderline irritating way that was so _Peter_  that Olivia almost chuckles in that instant.

_I’ll never have to bother with  a paternity test with this kid._

 She sighs.

“ So you’re my tour guide huh? Where do we start?”

The girl simply smiles. In the next instant, there's a loud static buzz that almost deafens  her.  She finds herself standing in  a park in the next moment.

She hears Peter’s voice.

_“ You know, I think that I would be happy to stay here for the rest of my life.”_

 “ What is this place?” Olivia asks, looking at  her younger self stretched out on the picnic blanket.  Peter’s lying on her back.  In the distance she can see Etta amidst some dandelions, playing with the flowers.

_“We should probably get her home soon, get her into a bath, which is never easy.”_

“ Don’t you remember?” The woman, now having rejoined her, asks her.

_“I nominate you for that one.”_

“ It’s the day that Walter went missing.” Olivia says softly, recognition dawning upon her then.  She looks at Etta then.

“Why are we here?”

“ Because Agent Dunham…this is where everything began and ended.”


End file.
